


The Disappearances of Draco Malfoy

by Speechwriter (batmansymbol)



Series: The Disappearances of Draco Malfoy [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Harry/Ginny, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Horcrux Hunting, No Bashing In General, No Dumbledore Bashing, No Weasley Bashing, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Redemption, Slow Burn, background ron/hermione (former)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:20:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 219,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23296162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batmansymbol/pseuds/Speechwriter
Summary: The night that Harry and Dumbledore return from the cave, the Death Eaters are delayed from reaching the top of the Astronomy Tower for one more minute. Draco Malfoy lowers his wand.A Deathly Hallows rewrite in which Draco accepts Dumbledore's offer to fake his death and go into hiding with the Order of the Phoenix.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: The Disappearances of Draco Malfoy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772842
Comments: 918
Kudos: 1241
Collections: Fic Journal of the Plague Year, chapter updates on these WIPs are why I breathe air





	1. Afterlife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi and welcome! a few notes:  
> 1) this is a Deathly Hallows rewrite focusing on a full Draco redemption arc, with an eventual Dramione endgame. it's very plot-focused, so the first several chapters do read more like a gen fic than romance, jsyk  
> 2) update schedule for remaining chapters can be found [here.](https://batmansymbol.tumblr.com/post/643585020481683456/hey-i-just-read-and-caught-up-with-the)
> 
> i hope you enjoy it, and thank you for reading :) <3

_“I can help you, Draco,” said Dumbledore._

_“No, you can’t,” said Malfoy, his wand hand shaking very badly indeed. “Nobody can. He told me to do it or he’ll kill me. I’ve got no choice.”_

_“He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Nobody would be surprised that you had died in your attempt to kill me—forgive me, but Lord Voldemort probably expects it. Nor would the Death Eaters be surprised that we had captured and killed your mother—it is what they would do themselves, after all. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban. … When the time comes we can protect him too. Come over to the right side, Draco … you are not a killer …”_

_Malfoy stared at Dumbledore._

_“But I got this far, didn’t I?” he said slowly. “They thought I’d die in the attempt, but I’m here … and you’re in my power … I’m the one with the wand … you’re at my mercy …”_

_“No, Draco,” said Dumbledore quietly. “It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.”_

_Malfoy did not speak. His mouth was open, his wand hand still trembling …_

* * *

With every passing second, the wand in Draco’s hand seemed to grow heavier.

 _Do it,_ hissed Bella’s voice in his mind. _Kill him, Draco … the filthy Muggle-lover … look at his ruined hand, look at how he stands, how he breathes. He is as good as dead already! Kill him now!_

Draco had been hearing Bellatrix’s voice all year. In the days after his assignment, her fanatical energy had felt like a gift. She knew as well as he did that the Dark Lord had given him this mission to punish his father— _and yet,_ she’d said, _think, think of what you might achieve, Draco! It is a chance that any faithful servant of the Dark Lord would die for, to serve him beyond all others!_

Draco had repeated the idea to himself so many times that it had become a liturgy. This wasn’t a death sentence at all. It was an invitation to the Dark Lord’s right hand, and if he could only kill Dumbledore, he would cross the finish line, ensure his family’s status forever, and win power and glory beyond imagining. Kill Dumbledore, and end the dark year at last.

But now, as the night wind stung his eyes, as he stood shivering upon the cusp of victory, Draco allowed himself to imagine it fully. He saw himself sitting beside the Dark Lord as his most honored deputy. And he saw the truth, glowing steadily and ominously like a faint red light behind everything else. He thought he might have known it for months already.

This was not a finish line. It was the starting gate. Kill once, and he would need to kill again and again to survive. And even then, even if he gave the Dark Lord decades of loyal, absolute service, he wouldn't be safe. He could be brutally punished at any time for a single error, as his father had been.

He thought wildly of his parents, then of Crabbe and Goyle, Pansy and Blaise. They would suffer for his failures the way he’d suffered for his father’s. His life would be the dark year drawn out forever into the future, a lifetime spent beneath a knife that hung by a thread.

Draco clutched harder to the wand, telling himself to act—to say the incantation—to make the choice—but the world seemed to be dissolving around him. Everything was coming apart into incomprehensible patches of texture and sensation. There was this: the pale green light that shimmered down from the Dark Mark overhead, undulating over stone and flesh and rampart, like standing in an underwater place. And this: the tacky stick and reek of cloth in the damp pit of his right arm, where his robes had bunched; he hadn’t showered in three days, sleepless with preparation. And this: the hiss and whip of the wind at the top of the world.

This. The depth of the lines in the old man’s face. Draco was standing close enough to see where the silver hair joined to the ancient skin, like a thousand silk threads coming out of old, soft fabric.

Bella’s voice seemed to fade, replaced by an echo of Dumbledore’s gentle words. _It is my mercy, not yours, that matters now_.

The old man was right. There was no mercy anywhere else.

His hand trembling more violently than ever, Draco lowered the wand.

A resounding _bang_ came from the stairwell behind him, followed by the distant crash of stone hitting stone. The voices below that had been growing louder were suddenly shut away, leaving the ramparts silent, as if they were miles away from the rest of the castle.

Draco didn’t even react. He was swaying, lightheaded.

“We must move at once,” said Dumbledore. Seeming to draw strength from a place it caused him great pain to access, he grasped the ramparts and pulled himself slowly, excruciatingly upright. “Time is very short. Your wand, Draco … as quickly as you can, please.”

Draco handed the wand to Dumbledore, but his eyes were fixed on the flagstones. He couldn’t watch his own body act, couldn’t fully understand it even as he did it.

Dumbledore aimed the wand over the ramparts and whispered, “ _Accio!_ ”

A moment’s silence. Then Dumbledore’s own wand flew up out of the darkness, cut through the night winds with a _thwip_ , and landed in his waiting hand. Dumbledore aimed both wands at the door to the stairwell—Draco flinched backward at the motion—and the door flew shut, sealing away new sounds of shifting rock. Draco heard the lock snap into place.

Dumbledore returned Draco’s wand and indicated the brooms that still leaned against the ramparts. “Take the faster of the two,” he rasped. “Fly to Hagrid’s hut and wait there. We will speak soon enough.”

Draco was jarred back to his senses. Hagrid’s hut? Was _that_ supposed to be the security Dumbledore had promised? “But—I—you said—”

“You will know the full plan soon, Draco,” Dumbledore insisted, his brilliantly blue eyes meeting Draco’s over the rims of his half-moon spectacles. “For now, there is no time. I must ask you to fly to Hagrid … to trust, if not my judgment, my rather prodigious skill.” Dumbledore managed a feeble smile.

Draco hesitated. Dumbledore was visibly weakened, and the Death Eaters were on their way, and Snape had made the Vow to his mother. If someone else finished Dumbledore … if no one knew Dumbledore had promised to protect him …

Then a muffled shout issued from the stairwell. Draco flinched, swallowed, and jerked his head in a reluctant nod.

“Good,” Dumbledore said. “The final touch, then …” He rapped Draco on the head with his wand. Draco felt something cold trickle down his back as the Disillusionment charm erased him.

“Go, now,” Dumbledore whispered.

As Draco seized one broom, Dumbledore summoned the other. Draco glanced back as he mounted and couldn’t help but pause at the sight. Under Dumbledore’s wand, the second broom’s long handle was swelling like an arthritic finger, bulging outward first at random, then to mimic what were unmistakably hips, ribs, and shoulders. The wood softened, seeming to melt until it looked like pale skin, and the handle split into two legs, draped with the soft black cloth of a fallen robe. The bristles shortened and shone until they had become white-blond hair, framing a sphere of wood that elongated into a human face—Draco’s own face.

Within seconds, another Draco Malfoy lay before them, motionless, quite convincingly dead. Dumbledore pulled up its left sleeve to reveal the skull and the snake intertwined there.

Draco stared into the face that had stared back at him in the mirror all year, the body he had wished he could escape. Even he couldn’t discern a difference between his own self and the thing he was about to leave behind, the corpse with the mark written upon its pale forearm.

Dumbledore looked up. “Go,” he said.

Draco kicked off, hard, into darkness and wind.

* * *

He didn’t know how much time had passed. The shock of what he’d done was still beating slowly through him, distorting his perspective. It might have been ten minutes or an hour since he’d lowered the wand.

He sat in silence at Hagrid’s rough wooden table and watched the fire crackle. He refused to look at Hagrid, who seemed to loom in the corner of his eye no matter which direction Draco turned.

To say the gamekeeper had been surprised to see him was an understatement. Thankfully, the oaf hadn’t asked for information. He’d just grunted, his obvious dislike mingled with suspicion, and yanked out an empty chair for Draco to take.

Vaguely, it occurred to Draco how ridiculous it was that someone of Hagrid’s size lived in a place like _this_. It was the kind of thought he might have shaped into a joke last year to make Crabbe and Goyle laugh, before things like making his friends laugh had become unimportant.

He tried not to think where Crabbe and Goyle might be now. An unwanted memory resurfaced: the moment that Fenrir Greyback had muscled his way out of the Vanishing Cabinet into the Room of Requirement. Draco hadn’t expected him, hadn’t wanted him. It was only supposed to be Yaxley, Gibbon, Rowle, and the Carrows, all dangerous, but all at least reliable. The sudden appearance of Greyback—the way he towered over them, the size and the rancid smell of him, everything about him an invasion—had made Draco’s mouth go dry.

Crabbe, miraculously, had stood his ground as Greyback bore down on them, but Draco and Goyle had shied back a few steps, which had made the werewolf roar with laughter. Draco had collected himself almost at once, his cheeks hot. “I didn’t ask you here, werewolf,” he’d said through gritted teeth. “Go back. Are you listening to me? Go back in!”

But Greyback and the others were already stalking toward the exit, speaking in low, excited voices, ignoring Draco.

Crabbe and Goyle looked to Draco, expecting instructions. For an instant he could only look back at them, wondering with a rush of panic where Blaise and Pansy were. Draco knew Greyback would attack them as he would attack anyone in the castle, indiscriminately.

“You two stay here,” he ordered Crabbe and Goyle. “Keep the Room open so we don’t waste time getting back in after I—a-after it’s done.”

Then Draco strode through the towering aisles of forgotten objects to meet the others. He would not run. Running was a mark of desperation and would make him look like a child, and he wasn’t a child. He’d planned this entire attack, hadn’t he? At its end, he would be not just a man but one of the most feared men in the country—and when he had the Dark Lord’s favor, he would make Greyback pay for ever dismissing him.

The thought had heartened him. It had made him feel powerful.

Now Draco stared into the fire, his palms sweating. He felt ill. In a matter of hours, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, and Blaise would all think he was dead. Tomorrow Dumbledore would make some grave speech about it to the school, probably about how his death had been the Dark Lord’s fault, and just one more reason to stand together and fight him.

Draco gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to be used like that. His advice to the other Slytherins wouldn’t be to take up arms against the Dark Lord—it would be sit down and stay silent. If someone in power tells you what to do, do it, whether that’s You-Know-Who or Dumbledore. Don’t be a hero. Don’t try to figure out what you believe. Survive. Disappear.

He told himself again that he had made the right decision. Dumbledore was a fool when it came to things like his trust of Snape and his worship of Potter, but the headmaster had defied the Dark Lord for decades. He could hide them, surely. Draco and his parents could flee the country, change their names and keep their heritage boxed away. They would be safe and obscure, no one.

Draco closed his eyes. The flames danced dully in abstract shapes behind his eyelids. If someone had told him two years ago that he, the heir to the House of Malfoy, would ever hope to fade into insignificance, he would have laughed in their face. Of course, a lot of things had seemed funny before.

Hagrid broke the silence after what must have been hours. “Tha’s Professor McGonagall comin’ now,” he rumbled from across the table, his eyes fixed on the window.

Draco looked up as the door opened and McGonagall strode into the hut. Her face was smudged with rock dust, her temple bruised, and a thin red scrape was drawn across her jaw. She closed the door and checked that all the curtains were drawn before turning to face him. McGonagall’s gaze was always unforgiving, but Draco thought it felt even more penetrating than usual tonight. He avoided it.

“Wha’s happened?” said Hagrid, staring at McGonagall. “Yeh’ve been hurt!”

“Death Eaters, Hagrid.” Her eyes were still boring into Draco. “They gained entry to the castle. You didn’t see the Dark Mark, then?”

“I was sleepin’ until Malfoy turned up! Ruddy hell, are they still here? Do yeh need me ter fight?”

“No need, no. Professor Dumbledore returned to the castle in time to turn the tide, very fortunately.”

“An’—an’ everyone’s all right?”

She managed a thin smile. “We have all our limbs, Hagrid, yes.”

“Oh.” Hagrid huffed out a long breath. “Good. Well, then. Yeh … yeh want a cuppa, Minerva?”

“No time, I’m afraid,” she said, turning to Draco fully now. “Mr. Malfoy. Professor Dumbledore has explained the circumstances.”

Draco still didn’t look up, but he could feel Hagrid’s curious stare joining McGonagall’s accusing one.

“I’m sure you will be relieved to hear,” she went on, “that none of your classmates were injured by the Death Eaters tonight. As for the Vanishing Cabinet, it has been dismantled, and the passage between them closed.”

Malfoy didn’t answer. If McGonagall was waiting for him to weep with joy for the Death Eaters’ failure and repent upon his knees, she would be waiting a long time. He could hear the judgment in her voice, the poorly disguised anger, even disbelief of what he’d done. She hadn’t really understood the circumstances at all, then.

He found himself thinking, begrudgingly, of how Dumbledore had listened to him. Dumbledore, at least, had acknowledged the danger he faced.

Still … his friends were unhurt. A knot eased inside his stomach.

“What about my mother?” he said, more belligerently than he’d intended.

McGonagall’s lips thinned, but she answered in a level voice. “Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks have already been sent to retrieve her from your home.”

He looked up at that. “They think they’re just going to walk in, do they? My cousin, who’s been an Auror for about seven seconds, and a patched-up werewolf who—”

“That will do,” McGonagall barked. “I assure you, Mr. Malfoy, our Order members are quite capable of doing the task assigned to them. And, as you yourself are meant to have attacked Albus Dumbledore tonight, signs of a struggle at your home will only send a clearer response to the Death Eaters.”

“Signs of a—you’re not—” Draco struggled for words. “They won’t—?”

McGonagall paused. For the first time, she seemed to soften slightly. “Your mother will not be harmed, of course. Lupin has taken along a vial containing Dumbledore’s memory of tonight’s events. Narcissa will be shown that you are safe and well, and urged to come and meet you.” She paused. “As for a struggle, I mean that Remus and Tonks will break any protective enchantments at your home and lay evidence of a fight to match our story.”

Draco looked away. “All right, then,” he muttered. “And the Death Eaters? Have you killed them yet?”

A moment’s ringing silence. When he glanced back, both teachers looked shocked by the question. Or maybe they were shocked by the way he’d said it, dully, as if it cost him nothing.

Draco couldn’t keep the contempt from his expression now. Did they really think he felt any affection for the other Death Eaters, who had stood back and laughed while Draco was threatened, his father slandered, his mother mistreated? Kill them all, he thought savagely, what does it matter.

“No, Mr. Malfoy,” said McGonagall with a deep, concerned frown. “One Death Eater was killed in the crossfire, but the others are being transferred to Ministry custody within the hour. We intend to allow one of the Carrows to make a narrow escape, so that You-Know-Who will learn the details of your death tonight. Otherwise he might be inclined to investigate your mother’s disappearance too closely.” She pursed her lips. “It goes without saying that we would rather not allow any Death Eater to go free. But it is certainly better for Alecto or Amycus to escape than Greyback.”

“I didn’t let him in here,” Draco said under his breath. His face felt hot and full, as if his blood had turned to boiling water. “Greyback wasn’t supposed to come.”

If McGonagall heard him, she made no sign. She was rummaging in a bag.

He raised his voice. “Where are you taking me? What’s this safe place Dumbledore says you’ve got?”

“You will be sheltered at Order headquarters. We’ll go up to the castle now; you’re to use the Floo Network. You come too, Hagrid. Albus would like to fill you in. Ah, yes—here.” Something soft and silvery spilled out of McGonagall’s bag. Draco recognized it as an Invisibility Cloak. “Up, now, Malfoy. Put this on.”

He rose automatically on legs that still felt unsteady and took the Cloak. As they slipped out onto the dark grounds, McGonagall went on. “Professor Snape is attending to Professor Dumbledore in the Hospi—”

Draco stopped dead, half-under the Cloak. “Snape?” he said. “He— _he_ doesn’t know about this, does he?”

“Of course he does.”

Draco stared back at her aghast. He could hardly believe that they could have been so stupid. “Then you’re going to get us killed!”

“Merlin’s beard,” Hagrid said, “keep yer voice down.”

“I’m telling you,” Draco hissed, looking frantically between the two teachers, “you have to listen to me. Snape works for the Dark Lord. He’s been trying to help me get to Dumbledore all year. If you’ve told Snape the plan, I’m as good as dead already.”

“Mr. Malfoy, please,” said McGonagall sharply. “Severus will be no more involved in your concealment than any other member of the Order. Professor Dumbledore has sworn to see to you and your parents’ wellbeing personally. I assure you he is up to the task.”

Draco hardly heard her. The only thing that mattered was that she wasn’t listening, she didn’t believe him. His heart was pounding in his ears, and new fear was rushing through him, making his whole body cold. He’d trusted Dumbledore to think up something advanced, something unbeatable—and instead the old fool had had gone right to Snape. The moment Snape was unattended, he would tell the Dark Lord the truth. Draco could see it all playing out in his mind: the Death Eaters would beat the Aurors to his mother. They would torture and kill her, and then his father. Draco would be responsible.

His thoughts raced madly into the past, back to his own idiotic choice. He’d had Dumbledore powerless in front of him! He should have killed the old man, yes, he saw that now … should have killed him and found some way to fake his _own_ death, to make his _own_ escape … but it was too late now. He’d succeeded where nobody had thought him capable of success, and in the end, he and his parents would die in pain and disgrace anyway.

_Unless …_

A glimmer of hope appeared. He tried to swallow and couldn’t. The lump in his throat was as large and sharp as a clump of broken glass.

 _Unless_.

Could Snape choose to lie for them?

Draco knew he was Snape’s favorite student. He’d always been best in the class at Potions, besides the Granger Mudblood, anyway. And hadn’t Snape tried to help him all year? Hadn’t Snape, unknown even to the Dark Lord, sworn an Unbreakable Vow to help Draco?

Maybe there was a chance.

If he or his parents had posed a threat to the Dark Lord, it would have been Snape’s sworn duty to reveal them, or just kill them himself. But surely they had no information that the Order didn’t already have. Draco had been entrusted with nothing, his father had been locked in Azkaban for a year, and his mother was not a Death Eater. It wasn’t as if they were helping the Order of the Phoenix—they were trying to disappear, nothing more.

Was it so impossible that Snape would show mercy, simply allow the Malfoys to evaporate?

 _Besides,_ he realized with a fresh surge of hope, _Snape can’t do anything right away._ Double agents had to think tactically. As long as Dumbledore lived, Snape had to keep the secret, or his loyalties would be revealed.

Draco loosed a slow breath. Yes. That was good, solid reasoning. He had some time, then. Snape would surely seek to kill Dumbledore soon, to fulfill the Vow, but Dumbledore didn’t need to survive forever, only long enough to hide Draco and his parents somewhere not even Snape knew.

Until that time, as long as Dumbledore lived, he was safe.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s go.” He let the Invisibility Cloak fall over him and followed McGonagall up the long, sweeping lawn.

* * *

Draco hadn’t seen the castle so empty all year. Sneaking up to and down from the Room of Requirement, he’d had dozens of near misses with inconveniently placed Order members on patrol, or teachers out of their beds, looking sleepless and harried, their wands held loosely in their hands as if they were always expecting attack.

Now they didn’t pass so much as a ghost. Most of the portraits were sleeping in their frames, although occasionally a figure would stir and watch McGonagall and Hagrid, seemingly alone, pass down the corridors.

The torchlight shone through Draco’s invisible body as he followed the teachers up a long staircase. He felt a kind of exhaustion beyond physical tiredness. The morning seemed as if it had happened a year ago, when he’d jerked awake in the Slytherin dormitory with the same fear that had been closing in on him for months now, the feeling that his time was running out. He felt mostly numb, now, and yet as he gazed blankly around at the halls of Hogwarts, knowing he could never come back, his insides seemed to coil and twist like a nest of serpents.

“Ah, Minerva. Lock the door, please,” said Dumbledore’s voice as they entered the Hospital Wing. It was so late that he was entirely alone. Even Madam Pomfrey had gone to sleep.

“Professor Dumbledore!” Hagrid’s eyes widened at the sight of the headmaster lying in the infirmary bed. In his haste to get to Dumbledore’s side, he accidentally clipped an empty bed with one of his enormous knees, sending it flying aside with a resounding _clang_ as if it were made of straw.

Draco hardly noticed. He had stopped in his tracks.

A second person lay motionless in a nearby bed, a figure with Weasley-red hair. Draco couldn’t tell if he knew him, because the face had been mangled and torn so violently that his features resembled a red blur.

Draco felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Hadn’t McGonagall said that none of the students had been hurt?—but of course, most of the Weasleys had left Hogwarts … Draco remembered how the twins had left last year, flying out of the Entrance Hall, Umbridge raging after them. He remembered feeling a reluctant sense of amusement, even admiration. He’d had to wipe the tiny smirk off his face when Umbridge had rounded, seething, on the Inquisitorial Squad, her face so shiny and purple that she’d looked like a peeled onion.

Draco’s mouth was slightly open. He realized his vision was blackening slightly at the edges with the speed of his breathing. He finally managed to tear his eyes from the deep gashes, from the skin that had been arranged delicately back into place like a hideous puzzle, but his thoughts felt disorganized. The Hospital Wing seemed too bright. He knew without needing to ask that the wounds were from Greyback. Had Dumbledore asked him here so he would be forced to see this, the consequences of what had happened tonight? So was he meant to feel guilty, even responsible?

 _No,_ Draco thought with a kind of furious panic. No, he refused to feel responsible. What good was it for him to feel that, or even to see the destroyed face? He’d turned his back on the Death Eaters. What more could he do? Anyway, he’d told Greyback to go. He seized on that fact and held it tight. Go back, he’d said. Go back …

“Draco,” said Dumbledore. “Please, show yourself.”

Still breathing hard, Draco realized he didn’t want to take off the Cloak. He didn’t want Dumbledore to see him again, not standing feet from the mauled body, where the line could be drawn so obviously between them. What if Dumbledore changed his mind and decided he didn’t want to help him anymore? He knew he couldn’t last on his own.

“Now, Mr. Malfoy,” said McGonagall impatiently, holding out her hand. “The headmaster needs rest, and you need to leave as soon as you can.”

Draco swallowed, took off the Cloak, and dropped it into McGonagall’s waiting hand.

Dumbledore looked slightly concerned at the sight of his face. “Are you all right, dear boy?” he asked.

Draco stared at the old man. _All right?_ Was that a test? Was he supposed to compare himself to the horrible injuries of the figure in the bed, and to realize that he _was_ all right, but only at the expense of whichever Order member it was? Was that the psychological game Dumbledore was playing?

Draco realized his face had twisted up. “Never been better,” he forced out.

McGonagall and Hagrid looked irritated, but Dumbledore was as serene as ever, twinkling away in his bed. Draco didn’t want to look at them—all Gryffindors, he realized, standing unified against him. Instead he glared at Dumbledore’s blackened hand lying against the white sheets.

“Well?” he said. “When are you going to get my father out of Azkaban?”

Hagrid let out a furious, strangled noise. “Get—get ‘is— _what?_ ” Even McGonagall couldn’t restrain an odd little sound that sounded a bit like a cat choking on a hairball.

Dumbledore did not look at either of them. He met Draco’s eyes, and almost at once, Draco felt an inexplicable sense of safety settle over him. He hated himself for the feeling—so far, hadn’t Dumbledore done little more than hurl him back into danger with his idiotic trust of Snape?—and yet there was something in the ancient face that still radiated power, and therefore reassurance.

“As I said earlier,” Dumbledore said calmly, “Lucius is safe enough in Azkaban for the time being. There is no need to fear for his life, especially now that Lord Voldemort will consider him, after the apparent death of his son _and_ wife, more than sufficiently punished. In fact,” he added mildly, as if commenting on the weather, “if we act out his death immediately after your mother’s, it will make both deaths rather less convincing, I think.”

“But you know how you’re going to do it? You have a plan?”

Dumbledore inclined his head.

“Well?” Draco said impatiently. “What is it?”

“Malfoy,” barked McGonagall, who clearly thought he was being too demanding with a convalescent man over a century old. But Dumbledore silenced her by lifting his healthy hand, which, Draco noticed, was not trembling nearly so badly now as it had on top of the tower.

“Sometime in the coming weeks,” said Dumbledore calmly, “members of the Order will visit Lucius in Azkaban under the guise of informing him of your death. They will, of course, tell him the truth instead. They will also provide him with a dose of Draught of Living Death to drink soon thereafter.” One corner of Dumbledore’s mouth lifted. “After his burial in the family plot, I daresay we might find him under slightly less surveillance. Then he can be fetched back to headquarters, too.”

Hagrid couldn’t seem to contain himself. “But Professor Dumbledore, sir,” he burst out, “how are we ter know Lucius Malfoy won’t run righ’ back to You-Know-Who after gettin’ out of Azkaban?”

Draco snapped. Part of him had been waiting for something like this, waiting to vent some tiny fraction of his fear and anger. “Because,” he snarled, “my father’s smart enough not to waltz back to the Dark Lord while your lot have my mother and me all but captive at your headquarters. Thank God I’m not relying on _your_ brains to keep us alive.”

The expected maroon color flooded Hagrid’s cheeks. Draco wanted him to retort, wanted an excuse to fight, but before Hagrid could respond, Dumbledore broke in.

“To your question, Hagrid,” he said, voice slightly raised, “I do not believe that Lucius would risk his wife and son for anything, especially for a loyalty to Lord Voldemort that wavered so soon after his master first lost his body.”

Now he looked toward Draco, stern-faced for the first time since Draco had said the word “Mudblood” on top of the Astronomy Tower. “Draco,” he said with a touch of steel. “Not just here, but while you are at headquarters, I must ask you never to speak to a member of the Order that way again. To protect you puts them all at risk. You owe them, if not your gratitude, your respect.”

Draco clenched his jaw. All sorts of thoughts flew through his head, namely that he hadn’t _asked_ for the oaf’s help, that he wouldn’t trust Hagrid as far as he could throw the great lump, that—far from protecting him—if Hagrid didn’t wind up compromising his family’s safety by sheer carelessness it would be an absolute miracle.

But he knew insulting Hagrid would do nothing. It was Dumbledore he needed to keep happy, so he twitched his head in the smallest nod he could manage.

Dumbledore didn’t look wholly convinced. “You will promise to treat everyone who enters Order headquarters with respect?”

Draco closed his eyes. He could only imagine what would come pouring into that place come summer. Harry bloody Potter, he supposed, and the Weasel King, and the Mudblood Encyclopedia. Not to mention werewolves and blood traitors and Aurors and generally no one he wanted to see under any circumstances ever.

“What does it matter?” Draco ground out.

“Oh, it matters greatly, Draco.” Dumbledore sighed and lifted a goblet from the bedside. He sipped the potion inside, grimaced, and then straightened slightly against his cushions. “To respect each other,” he said, with more strength, “no matter our differences, is the most fundamental distinction between what the Order practices and what the Dark Lord espouses among his followers. We will have much to accomplish this summer, and—”

“I’m not working for you.” The words were out of Draco’s mouth before he’d planned them.

Dumbledore looked at him with polite interest. “Oh?”

Draco felt both Hagrid’s and McGonagall’s disapproving looks hot on the side of his face, but he lifted his chin defiantly. “You heard me,” he said coldly. “I said I’m not working for you. Snape might keep quiet if he thinks my parents and I are just hiding, but if he thinks we’re working against the Death Eaters, there’s no chance he won’t tell the Dark Lord.”

“Professor Snape has been instructed not to reveal your survival to—”

“ _He isn’t working for you!_ What do I have to do to get that through your—”

“That is enough, Malfoy!” Professor McGonagall snapped. “Really!”

Draco rounded on her, but before he could snap back, Dumbledore intervened again.

“Please, Minerva. Have patience. Draco has suffered a dreadful ordeal, and Severus does, after all, play his part convincingly enough to fool even Lord Voldemort. It is perfectly natural for Draco to be concerned for his and his family’s wellbeing.”

Draco just stared at Dumbledore. He had no idea what he was supposed to feel at this collection of sentences. Were they condescending? Yes. Mollifying? Also yes, somehow.

Draco couldn’t understand the old man at all. He seemed so understanding of everyone and everything that it was like he wasn’t a person at all, just a ghostlike entity who drifted between a thousand points of view, acknowledging them all to be _perfectly natural_ without ever really feeling anything of his own. He even spoke about the Dark Lord with a bizarre kind of understanding.

Draco wanted to decide it was pathetic, but he couldn’t get beyond the fact that it was completely incomprehensible. What, did Dumbledore never judge anyone? Did he never prefer anyone or dislike anyone? How could he even be on his own side and say that Draco had “suffered a dreadful ordeal”? Draco would almost have preferred Dumbledore to look at him with loathing; at least that would have made sense.

Anyway, he’d shut McGonagall up, so there was that small blessing.

“I do not expect you to assist the Order of the Phoenix, Draco,” said Dumbledore lightly, as if nothing had interrupted his original speech. “It is enough of a victory, in terms of our aims, for three people close to the Dark Lord to cease working against us. And it will be difficult enough for you to leave behind everything you know, to be thought dead.”

Draco had no response to that, either. Dumbledore’s expression was a bit too knowing, as if he’d guessed what Draco was imagining. His friends’ faces when they learned what had supposedly happened to him. The silence in their compartment on the Hogwarts Express back home.

“What are you going to tell them?” he muttered, looking at the floor.

“I will announce to the school that you had been sworn into Lord Voldemort’s service and ordered to kill me, or be murdered yourself. I will tell them, too, that you admitted to the attacks that hurt Katie Bell and Ron Weasley. Yes, Draco,” he added more quietly, “I’m afraid the school deserves to know the truth about that. The more of your behavior this year they understand, the more they will be able to understand the kind of future that awaits them under Voldemort’s rule.”

“So, you’re going to use me as a warning, are you?” Still looking at the Hospital Wing’s scrubbed floors, Draco couldn’t quite keep the sneer out of his voice. “Be careful or you’ll wind up like Draco Malfoy. Join up now, and resist the Dark Lord, so we don’t have any more Draco Malfoys in the world. Except you’re still getting them killed that way, aren’t you?”

Dumbledore did not reply for a moment. When Draco looked up, he felt an uncertain lurch at the expression on Dumbledore’s face. The old man’s eyes were bright and full of pain.

“Yes,” Dumbledore said quietly. “For those like you, Draco, who come of age in times like these, I’m afraid that is the only choice left to make: whether to stand against evil, at risk of being cut down by its many terrible weapons—or to come quietly, and be led, voiceless, into its center.”

Draco couldn’t answer. His throat had constricted.

“Is there anything else you wish to ask me before you go?” Dumbledore asked.

“Who … who’s that,” said Draco, unable to look at the other bed.

“Bill Weasley. He was Head Boy here in his time, and a Prefect like yourself. I believe you know his youngest brother, Ron, and his sister Ginny. He will recover, though his life will, of course, be different.” Dumbledore paused. “If that is all, then please read this.”

He handed Draco a slip of parchment. It read: _The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is located at Number 12, Grimmauld Place_.

Hardly had Draco read the words when the parchment burst into a heatless flame. In seconds it had gone.

“Goodnight, Draco,” Dumbledore said, taking off his spectacles. His face looked strangely and soft and naked without them. “Thank you for what you did tonight.”

 _Mad,_ Draco thought.

“Night,” he muttered, and then he let McGonagall steer him away, through the halls one last time, and into her office, where he cast a pinch of glittering green powder upon an empty grate, spoke the address, and left his life behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regular notes: thanks for reading! reviews/comments always make my day :D
> 
> Notes for Fic Journal of the Plague Year: This chapter was drafted during social isolation and edited during Shelter-in-Place, an escalation on restrictions in Chicago that happened a few days ago.
> 
> The moment I lost one of my jobs to the virus situation (dog-walking, the job that happens on a Monday to Friday basis and gives me a regular schedule), I decided I wanted to start a new long fic project for the first time in years and years. HP fanfiction is maybe the most comfortable space in the world for me. I’ve also met so many wonderful people through it, which makes everything feel even warmer and cozier. For all that people constantly Discourse about fandom’s toxicity, I have barely ever felt a personal bad vibe off the whole experience. And I wrote fandom-related songs in like 2012 that talked about SuperWhoLock and stuff. You’d think I’d be a prime target for cringe humiliation efforts.
> 
> Anyway. For me this particular fic will probably be mostly escapism, although maybe I’ll find myself writing some additional oneshots or something that look the quarantine mood directly in the face. I don’t know. For now I just want some stability, so here I am.


	2. The Fall and the Flight

_Two weeks later_

It was lucky the house at Grimmauld Place had several stories and a basement still strewn with Dark artifacts, because if it had been smaller or duller, Draco thought he might have surrendered himself to the Dark Lord out of sheer boredom.

“ _Draco,_ ” said his mother one evening, when he made the mistake of saying this to her. “That is nothing to joke about.”

He didn’t miss the way her eyes—icy blue and slightly feline, as if his own had been saturated with color—flicked nervously to the door. He knew she was remembering the manor, which for nearly a year had housed a steady stream of Death Eaters, all monitoring each other’s words for hints of weakness or disloyalty.

Draco yawned and sank down in his ancient leather chair. “Please, Mother. You know how hard I worked to get us this exclusive reservation. I’m not going to leave it all to you.”

Her expression softened, and her lips pulled briefly in a near smile. She returned to the _Evening Prophet._

Draco watched his mother for another moment. She looked, he realized, healthier than she had in a year. Her long blonde hair, which had been lank and dull every holiday, was brushed and clean now, and though her eyes still had the red tint of sleeplessness, her movements were less nervous. Her posture had regained the rigid perfection that Draco associated with black pearls and silk robes, the lavish parties of his childhood.

In general, she looked the way Draco felt: as if the previous year had been physically siphoned out of his body, leaving him lighter, able to breathe.

Draco ran his fingers over the chair’s cracked, faded arms and experienced a rare moment of contentment. It was mid-July and pleasantly hot, and they’d pushed up the windows of the drawing room to let in a breeze. The Wizarding Wireless in the corner was humming with the Clantham Crickets’ Symphony, and his mother was, if not happy, at least safe and comfortable. To top it all off, they’d received word two nights ago that Lucius had been smuggled the Draught of Living Death in Azkaban and was to be freed this weekend.

There was no owl post to the house, but the _Prophet_ and any messages came through the Floo twice a day, ejected unceremoniously onto the kitchen hearth. The most eventful bit of news in the _Prophet_ so far had been their shared obituary, which had run the week after their “deaths.” Draco had read the piece out loud in a somber, priestlike tone that had made his mother smile with teeth, which she never did; there was a sharp canine she didn’t like.

“Anything worth reading today?” he asked her, propping his feet up on an ottoman whose ivory legs looked like they might have been carved out of troll tusks.

“Not particularly,” she said. “The Ministry is conducting an internal investigation of the Department of Magical Games and Sports. They suspect someone there has been compromised.”

“ _Magical Games and Sports?_ ” Draco snickered. “Of course. All part of the Dark Lord’s master plan to take over the International Association of Quidditch.”

One corner of his mother’s mouth twitched. “They think it’s a side door into the Auror Office. Lax security in one department could mean a chain of Imperius Curses, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Oh.” Draco paused. “And? _Has_ someone been Imperiused?”

His mother arched one thin eyebrow. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss such things while we’re here, Draco.” She turned a page pointedly.

Draco stayed quiet and kept watching her, amused. His parents always withheld information from him for about twenty seconds. They seemed to regard it as a good exercise in patience.

On cue, his mother sighed and looked over at him. “I didn’t hear of any plans for that department. Of course, the Dark Lord will have jettisoned anything I did hear. He’ll think I was interrogated thoroughly before my death.”

“Of course. If Dumbledore’s known for anything, it’s his brutal interrogation tactics.”

“He _is_ an accomplished Legilimens.”

“Yeah, well, that didn’t stop me from getting Death Eaters into his school, did it?” Draco stood and stretched. “I think I’ll have the elf make me a cup of tea. Do you want any, Mother?”

“No, thank you, Draco. … I’ll call him if I need him.” Though she didn’t look up from the _Prophet_ , she reached up absentmindedly to touch Draco’s arm as he passed, as if to remind herself that he was real.

In the end, Draco headed down to the basement kitchen to make the tea himself. He wasn’t fond of the elf—Croucher, or whatever his name was—who had a bad habit of popping up suddenly, looking like a demented gnome. Two days after their arrival, the hideous old thing had shown up, sent by Dumbledore and apparently delighted to see both of them. Since then, Draco’s mother had been giving the elf orders, and under her instruction, the house had grown cleaner and cleaner. There was only one type of mold left on Draco’s bathroom ceiling, for instance. Or, rather, Regulus Arcturus Black’s bathroom ceiling; he’d been sleeping in the man’s bedroom.

“Master Draco!” yelped a deep, throaty voice when the kettle was halfway to boiling. Draco flinched and looked back to see the elf scurrying into the room, looking stricken. “Kreacher did not know Master Draco was in need of tea … Kreacher would have been honored, honored to serve the noble son of Malfoy … Kreacher knows he takes his tea strong, as befits his pure blood, yes …”

Draco moved back with slight disgust. Mercifully, the elf had replaced his old rag of a loincloth with a more presentable towel, but he still reeked with the scent of decay. Probably it was all the mold.

Then Draco registered the words. “How do you know how I make my tea?” he said, frowning. “You’ve never made me any.”

The elf shifted guiltily, his bloodshot eyes sliding back and forth. “Kreacher watched … that is to say … Kreacher was forced to watch Master Draco last year, at Hogwarts, under—” his expression soured— “ _Master Harry’s_ orders. Kreacher was made to supervise Master Draco at all times, and to tell Master Harry information, yes, he was, though he didn’t want to.”

Draco stared at the elf, repulsed. “ _At all times?_ What, even when I was asleep?”

Kreacher looked like he greatly regretted coming into the room. “Kreacher felt such remorse,” he gasped, his eyes swiveling violently now, “such remorse, to pry and spy on a Malfoy … such shame …”

But before Draco could ask any more questions, there were footsteps and whispers from the front of the house. Then the door was swinging open, and Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were walking into the kitchen.

“—if even _he_ doesn’t know who it is, then—” Granger was whispering to Weasley, but as the door swung shut behind them, she broke off.

Motionless, they stared across the kitchen at Draco for a long moment. He stared back.

The last time he’d seen Weasley, they’d been near the entrance to the Astronomy Tower during the fight. Weasley and his sister had been shooting hexes at the Death Eaters, mysteriously sliding under every counterattack at just the right time. Draco could still see the flashes of multicolored light reflecting across his freckled face. After two weeks of sitting in this silent house and doing nothing more exciting than Banishing a centipede down the drain, the memory of the battle—the yelling that echoed in a thousand directions, the taste of rock dust in the air as the castle took the marks of their anger—felt unreal.

It was even stranger to remember the last time he’d seen Granger: the day before the fight, waving her hand around in the air during one of Slughorn’s Potions lessons, making him suffer slightly from secondhand embarrassment as always. It didn’t seem possible that anything so normal could have been happening only two weeks ago.

The _creak_ as Kreacher slunk back out through the door brought Draco back to himself. “Don’t mind me,” he drawled, though his voice didn’t sound quite as nonchalant as he’d wanted. “I’ll be gone in a moment. Don’t want to interrupt your … what is this, are you eloping, or something?” He eyed Granger’s fingers, which were wrapped around Weasley’s arm. “Actually, I don’t think I want to know.”

“You’ve got some nerve,” Weasley snapped as Draco went back to poking through various boxes of tea. “Enjoying your vacation, are you?”

“I’ve had better. Doubt you have, though, Weasley.” He shot a smirk over his shoulder. “This place does have multiple bathrooms, so I suppose to you it’s practically a five-star hotel.”

Before Weasley could retort, the door opened again. Four more Weasleys poured into the kitchen, whispering among themselves: the twins, followed by the parents.

“—don’t care what Remus thinks you’re ready to—” Mrs. Weasley was hissing at one of the twins under her breath, but as the entire party spotted Draco and stopped in their tracks, she lost her voice just as Granger had. Silence fell again, even more uncomfortable than before.

The kettle began to whistle. Draco turned his back on them and poured his tea, suddenly aware that his mouth was dry. As he poured, he imagined spilling the boiling liquid over his fingers, imagined skin scalded red, injured skin, like Bill Weasley’s.

In the two weeks he’d been in this place, he’d watched Order members come and go from the first floor landing. He thought he’d heard the Weasley parents’ voices once or twice, during meeting nights, but he hadn’t seen them yet. He didn’t want to be in the room with them, or to know what they wanted to say to him.

With the steaming cup in his hands, Draco strode for the door, brushing past the mother, a dumpy little woman who smelled of cooking oil and some kind of cheap cleaning potion. He didn’t look at her. He only spared the rest a glance, but he thought, oddly, that none of them looked especially angry except for Ron. Even Granger was giving him a wary, critical look rather than her usual vehement glare.

Draco didn’t exhale until the kitchen door was shut behind him. He climbed up the short stairwell into the front hall to find that other members of the Order were amassing in the dusty light of the front foyer: Dedalus Diggle, bouncing on his tiptoes; and Kingsley Shacklebolt, a head taller than the rest; and his cousin Nymphadora, her hair an outrageous shade of tangerine. Tonight must have been a meeting of the entire Order.

“Draco, hello,” said a weary voice. Remus Lupin had emerged at the front of the group. Draco couldn’t help eyeing his robes, which had been patched so many times that they looked practically quilted.

Draco jerked his head in a nod of greeting and moved away from the kitchen door, but Lupin didn’t go through. His old professor sidestepped with him, instead, allowing the other Order members past. Mad-Eye Moody’s magical eye tracked around to stare at Draco as he clunked by on his wooden leg.

“How have you and your mother been doing?” Lupin asked, voice lowered. “I know this can’t have been easy for you. This house is …” His tired eyes traveled over the peeling wallpaper. “… not the most welcoming place.”

 _Merlin, spare me,_ Draco thought with irritation. Lupin obviously hadn’t changed since coming to Hogwarts in their third year. He had been like this then, too, annoyingly serious beneath his mantle of exhaustion, treating everyone like they were also nursing some private injury.

Well, Draco wasn’t. He was alive and safe and had no interest in being looked at like he was on the verge of breakdown. Even at the worst of things, he’d never needed pity, and especially not from a werewolf.

“We’re both fine,” he said coldly. “I’m going up to her now.”

“Oh, _that’s_ nice,” said Tonks indignantly as he stalked past her and Lupin. “We did _bring_ her here, you know, your mum. You’d think she’d have been less rude to people saving her life. I s’pose it runs in the family.”

Draco’s steps faltered. It was the first time his cousin had ever actually spoken to him. With a Mudblood for a father and a mother estranged from the family, Tonks had never been invited to the family reunions, or the Christmas parties, or the summer gatherings that fell all the way down the manor lawns in cascades of pastel umbrellas and platters of choux pastry. Draco had never wondered about _that_ side of the family—why would he be curious about anyone who’d married a Mudblood?—but now it occurred to him that his mother and Tonks’s mother had probably visited this house together growing up. He didn’t know why, but the thought made him feel oddly young.

The rest of the Order had all filed into the kitchen now. He avoided Lupin’s and Tonks’s eyes and didn’t answer her, starting up the long, carpeted steps instead.

But as he reached the landing, the door opened again. He glanced back and saw two final Order members: Snape, impassive and hook-nosed and greasy-haired as ever; and Dumbledore, who was moving slowly, deliberately, as if every motion caused him a hint of pain.

Draco watched them pass down the hall and into the kitchen. Dumbledore clearly hadn’t recovered from whatever had happened to him the night of the attack, but the old man was still sticking close to Snape, still clearly trusted Snape. It was a miracle Snape hadn’t found an opportunity to kill him yet. Of course, in this weakened state, the headmaster probably had to delegate everything to other Order members; he was probably surrounded all the time. Maybe Snape was trying to do it in absolute secrecy, so that he could stay in the Order’s ranks even after Dumbledore’s death.

Draco glanced back down the hall to the drawing room door. He thought of his mother reading inside, thought of her look of anticipation when they’d gotten word about his father. Suddenly the rescue didn’t feel like as much of a guarantee anymore. With Dumbledore in this state, it looked like one weak poison could finish him off.

Draco made a decision. He fetched the book about blood magic he’d been reading, sat on the top step, and waited for the kitchen door to open again. He knew it was no good trying to listen to the meeting; he’d tried it several times with smaller gatherings, but there was always some kind of Silencer on the door.

This time, the meeting lasted hours. Draco had finished both chapters about blood as a potion ingredient by the time the door cracked open again. He hurried downstairs as several Order members reached the front door. Green flashes were coming from the kitchen as others took the Floo out; he hastened for the entrance, not wanting to miss Snape and Dumbledore.

He was in luck. When he reached the threshold, Snape and Dumbledore were still there, along with Granger, Weasley, and Mrs. Weasley. Dumbledore was listening patiently to Mrs. Weasley, who was saying, “—younger Order members as little more than _bait_ , Albus …!”

Dumbledore raised a hand. Mrs. Weasley glanced over, saw Draco, and shut her mouth.

“Good to see you looking so well, Draco,” said Dumbledore with a small smile. “How may I be of use?”

“I wondered if I could have a word with Professor Snape,” Draco said.

Snape glanced at Dumbledore, who inclined his head slightly. “Go on,” said the old man. “I will wait for you here, Severus … Molly and I have more to discuss, clearly …”

Draco felt slightly unnerved. Even Dumbledore’s voice was noticeably weaker than usual. Draco wanted to watch the headmaster for any more warning signs, but soon Snape had crossed the kitchen and ushered Draco out into the now-empty hall.

“Yes?” said Snape. His black eyes were, as usual, unreadable.

“I’m not going to try to stop you,” Draco said quietly.

Snape’s expression did not change. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Draco lowered his voice further. “I know you made the Vow to my mother. I know you’re going to kill the old man. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

Snape reached out a hand and pushed the kitchen door all the way shut. “Then why say anything?” His lip curled. “Is this a threat?”

“No,” Draco said. “I’m … I’m asking you to wait until the Order gets my father out of Azkaban. None of the others will want to help us after he’s dead. And I’m asking you not to tell the Dark Lord we’re alive.” He paused, then added reluctantly, “Please.”

Snape looked coldly back into Draco’s face. It occurred to Draco, oddly, that he was an inch or so taller than Snape now. In his mind, Snape was still the towering presence he’d been during their first Potions lesson, the one professor in Hogwarts with the kind of power and mystique that Draco had wanted to learn himself.

“If you had accepted my help early on,” said Snape in his cool, sibilant voice, “last year would have been a great deal easier for you, Draco. … You said you didn’t want me to—what were the words?—ah, yes … to _steal your glory._ ” His lip curled. “Clearly something changed.”

Draco looked down at the grimy old carpet. “Fine. I couldn’t do it,” he ground out. “Is that what you want to hear? I couldn’t kill him.”

“Yet you would allow me to do it.”

Draco couldn’t help a bitter laugh. “Like I could stop you.” He shook his head and spoke more urgently. “But even if I _could_ stop you, I wouldn’t. That’s what I’m telling you. Just because I’m here, it doesn’t mean I’m working against the Dark Lord. My mother and father won’t, either. We’re not a risk to him. You can let us live and it—it won’t change anything, do you see?”

There was a long silence. Snape considered Draco, and Draco looked into his cold black eyes, daring Snape to use Legilimency on him, to see he was telling the truth. But he didn’t feel the familiar probing sensation. He wondered, with a sudden lurch in his gut, whether Snape had already revealed the truth to the Dark Lord, if, even now, the Death Eaters were just waiting for Dumbledore’s death to close in on Draco and his mother.

But then Snape said, “Very well.” He spoke so quietly that his lips barely moved. “As long as I know you are no threat to the Dark Lord … you may remain among the dead.”

Draco took a deep breath, relief flooding him. “Thank you, sir,” he said, dipping his head. “You know we’ll repay you if we ever can. You can always count on us.”

“I know,” Snape said.

Then the Potions Master turned and swept back into the kitchen. Soon there was a flash of green light. He and the headmaster were gone.

Moments later, Molly Weasley stormed past Draco toward the front door, muttering something to herself about “reckless” and “so young.” He heard the muffled _crack_ as she Disapparated on the front step, and when he headed down into the kitchen to return his teacup, he found Granger and Weasley still standing at the edge of the table, talking in low voices.

Again they stopped at the sight of him. They exchanged one of those looks that they and Potter were always trading with each other, as if the three of them could read each other’s minds. Draco wondered how it felt to be so readable, so predictable to another person. It seemed like it would be boring.

The silent transmission of information took only an instant. Then Granger seized Weasley’s upper arm in a viselike grip. “Ron,” she said in a warning tone. “Ron, don’t—”

“Get _off,_ Hermione.” Weasley tugged his arm free and took a step toward Draco. His ears were already red again. “I know what really happened,” he said darkly.

“Oh?” said Draco idly. “Well, that might sound a bit more threatening, Weasley, if I had any idea what you were talking about.”

Weasley’s face turned a shade redder. It was too easy with him, actually.

“I’m talking about the Vanishing Cabinet,” he said furiously. “The Room of Requirement. Dumbledore might’ve told everyone else a version of things that makes it sound like you didn’t have any choice, but we know you did. You’re not a hero just because you got cold feet at the last second.”

Draco’s eyes slid onto Granger, whose face was a web of shadows in the weak electric light of the kitchen. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t contradict Weasley, either. She was studying Draco with the same hard, critical look as before, the kind of look he’d seen her direct at difficult assignments.

The pair of them had probably discussed all this at length already. Anger filled Draco as he pictured it: these two debating back and forth with Potter, deciding how best to judge him—as if the last year of his life had been some sort of theoretical moral argument. _Sanctimonious little toerags,_ he thought viciously. What was the hardest choice the three of them had ever had to make? Whether to go with each other to the Yule Ball? Whether to keep their mouth shut in front of Umbridge so they wouldn’t get detentions? What a _struggle_.

Draco spoke only when he could be sure his voice wouldn’t betray his anger. “You think I need your approval, Weasel King?” he said, softening his voice to the same cold sneer that Snape had just used on him. “You think I give a damn whether you think I made the right choices or not?”

“No,” Weasley snapped. “I _don’t_ think you give a damn. I think you only thought about yourself, like always, and that’s why my brother’s going to be scarred for the rest of his life!” His voice had risen to a yell. He took a deep, shaky breath and tamped down the volume, though his voice still trembled with fury. “It all just went away for you, didn’t it, Malfoy? The second you’re out of danger, everything’s back to normal, eh? Well, it didn’t go away for me and my family. My brother nearly died for you Death Eaters to get a second chance you didn’t deserve.”

Draco just looked at him. The accusation had not hurt him. Actually, hearing the words, all of the heat in Draco’s body had seemed to drain, and now he felt as if he were standing several paces away from himself, watching himself be lectured, watching his own blank face. It was like the feeling of Occlumency: the numb remoteness, the total closure of himself to external force, and the strange accompanying hyperawareness of what was happening inside his own mind.

Inside, odd fragments of memory were surfacing. He remembered the Quidditch pitch in second year, watching Weasley’s curse backfire, the slugs that had oozed out of his mouth. He remembered laughing so hard at Weasley’s embarrassment and discomfort that no sound came out. And during sixth year he’d guffawed over the dinner table at the way he’d broken Potter’s nose. He remembered the satisfaction he’d felt as the bridge crunched beneath his foot and blood streamed down over Potter’s face, Potter getting what he deserved, pain and humiliation, the arrogant fool. He remembered, too, the Christmas holidays last year, when the Dark Lord had come to the manor accompanied by a Muggle man from the neighboring town who had drunkenly mocked his robes. Draco remembered the Muggle man’s glassy look, and how it had broken when the Dark Lord lifted the Imperius Curse, and how all the other Death Eaters had laughed to see him try to get away. Draco remembered the way the man’s naked feet had slipped and scrabbled comically on the shining parquet floors. The syncopated rhythm of his ragged breaths. The pain and terror on his crimson face as he spun, asphyxiating, into the air, directed by the Dark Lord’s wand. Draco had tried to make himself laugh, told himself it was funny, just a filthy Muggle getting what he deserved; that was the phrase that went through his head, cold and clear and mechanical, as if it were something he had memorized rote out of a textbook. Anyway, when commingled with the others’ laughter, the sounds he forced out of his throat sounded mostly natural, and Bellatrix looked at him like she was proud.

All of this flickered and died in his mind within an instant. He was back in the kitchen and legally dead. Weasley was still flushed, but the redness of his skin had lost its humor. Draco left his teacup on the counter and walked out of the kitchen.

* * *

_Two weeks later_

Hermione looked into Ron’s eyes as he told her everything was going to be fine.

Some doubt must have shown on her face, because he repeated, “It _will_.”

“Yes,” she said. “I—yes, I’m sure it will. You’re right.”

She didn’t sound convincing even to herself. Ron sighed. “Well, if you don’t feel safe with Shacklebolt, Mad-Eye, Lupin, _and_ Dumbledore there, I’m not going to be able to talk you into it, so I’m going to stop trying. You ready to go?”

Hermione nodded, feeling slightly sick. _It’s for Harry’s sake,_ she told herself. _You’re going to see Harry in a matter of minutes._ Then she shot a guilty look at Ron. Maybe she was imagining it, but she felt as if he’d started acting odd whenever she brought Harry up of her own accord.

She’d been at the Burrow for most of July now. Maybe she’d been stupid to expect it at a house filled with Ron’s family, but she’d thought … she didn’t know what she’d thought. That Ron would make a passionate declaration? No, maybe not, but she _had_ hoped that without Harry there, Ron might move in that general direction.

She felt as if she were going mad. Whenever they found time to discuss their hunt for the Horcruxes—discussions that required them to be hidden away in Ron’s room or Fred and George’s, where she was staying—she felt the tension in the air between them, and in her own body, pleasurably tense, like a string about to be played. And sometimes she could swear she felt Ron looking at her from across a room, or the crowded dinner table, but when she looked toward him, he was always in the middle of turning away.

She supposed it was reasonable to ask herself why _she_ hadn’t tried to move things along. Ginny had asked that precise question when Hermione had fretted to her one evening about Ron’s behavior.

“I—I don’t know,” Hermione said, taken aback. “I suppose …”

“Is it because Ron’s a boy?” Ginny said, flicking through a page of _Quidditch Quarterly._ “Never thought you’d be so old-fashioned, Hermione.”

“No, it’s not,” she said hotly. “It’s because … because … well, this _thing_ that we have to do with Harry … if Ron and I are seeing each other, it could strain the whole situation.”

“Oh, right, and it’ll be much less strained like this,” Ginny chortled. “The both of you looking like you’re constipated whenever you finish a completely average conversation.”

Hermione sighed and lay back on Ginny’s bed, while Ginny settled herself deeper in the pouf by her window. Unfortunately, Hermione couldn’t be entirely open, because a secret part of her dared to ask the question that neither Ginny nor Ron ever would: _did_ she feel something for Harry? It felt almost impossible to separate the tangled threads of what she felt for her two best friends. A feral kind of protectiveness, affection and tenderness, even jealousy—she felt it all for the both of them, so strongly that she wondered whether she might be mistaking it for romance with Ron, or missing it with Harry.

She wondered whether, if Harry had been here instead of Ron, and they had been having these private and intense discussions, she would have felt a similar tension. She even wondered whether, if it had been Harry who had been poisoned last year, Harry whose bedside she’d attended for weeks on end, her feelings might have developed that way instead. Or had she attended Ron’s bedside precisely _because_ she’d been so hurt by his relationship with Lavender? She couldn’t tell, and her logical mind knew perfectly well how ridiculous it was to try and cross-examine previous possibilities as if they changed anything, and also _they were fighting a war,_ and all of this seemed pathetic and trivial and still somehow like the most important thing in the world, all her feelings amplified by the danger they faced as if the constant possibility of disaster were a drug. Now or never, and more likely never.

Of course, she couldn’t tell Ginny any of this. The idea of revealing that she might have feelings for Ginny’s ex-boyfriend, with whom she was about to undertake an undercover mission, would have destroyed Ginny. Hermione knew that. She also knew that if she felt anything for Harry it would destroy Ron, too, his fragile self-confidence. These threads of guilt spun another indecipherable dimension into what she felt.

So Hermione had been keeping it all inside. And now, on the brink of seeing Harry again, she was feeling a kind of relief that made everything even more confusing. Why relief? When Ron’s presence made her feel a kind of fluttery agitation, when she’d become this attuned to his voice and his glances, why on earth was she _relieved_ that they’d failed to start things while they had the time and privacy? Was it because, secretly, she didn’t want to be with Ron? Or was it because it would have been too much to start a relationship when they would soon be in such danger? Was stasis reassuring because this kind of stasis was _already_ too much to feel?

Well, if she knew one thing, it was that if she’d tried to talk about any of it with Ron, he would have stared at her as if she were speaking another language. So she kept quiet.

When the time came, she, Ron, Bill, Fleur, and Mr. Weasley gathered in the yard around five brooms. Mrs. Weasley kissed her husband, Ron, and Bill, then hugged Fleur and Hermione. She performed their Disillusionment Charms for them before retreating, checking her watch. “You’d all better go now,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll see you soon. Very soon.”

“We’ll be back before you know it, Molly,” said Mr. Weasley.

The last thing Hermione saw before she kicked off was Mrs. Weasley’s weak, unconvincing smile.

* * *

“Harry!” Hermione threw herself into his arms.

When she drew back, he was grinning. “Hi, Hermione,” he said. “Hi, Ron, mate.” Ron clapped him hard on the back, and the anxiety of the previous month eased off Hermione’s shoulders. She could see in Ron’s ear-to-ear grin that he felt it too—the comfort of being together again, a perfectly assembled puzzle.

Dumbledore let Mad-Eye explain the plan: seven Potters, seven guardians. Harry protested, as she and Ron had known he would, but eventually relented, as he had to.

Hermione shuddered through the hot, melting, slightly painful process of Polyjuice transformation. When they were all dressed, Dumbledore began to pair them off. Harry was matched with Hagrid, Ron with Tonks, and Hermione with Dumbledore himself on a Thestral.

Hermione felt a nervous flutter. “Would—wouldn’t you prefer to guard Harry yourself, Professor Dumbledore?” she said.

“I don’t think so, Miss Granger,” he replied with a warm smile. “In the case of an attack, it will be best to distribute the Death Eaters’ attention. They will likely expect Harry, skilled flier that he is, to take a broom; he will, instead, be on a motorcycle. They will also likely expect him to be with me or with our Aurors; he will, instead, be kept safe by Hagrid.”

“I can go with Dumbledore instead,” Ron said quietly. “I don’t want you to be a target.”

“I don’t want either of you to be targets,” Harry muttered, his eyes flashing.

“It’s all right, you two,” Hermione said, trying not to sound worried. She saw Harry’s worry just beneath the surface of his anger. “It was bad enough flying here. You know how I am with brooms. I’d rather be on a Thestral.”

Soon, too soon, the brooms had been distributed, the Thestrals mounted, Harry tucked safely into Hagrid’s sidecar. Hermione had a gut feeling of foreboding. She didn’t want them to take off; she wanted them to wait. She wanted them all to be safe so badly that she felt as if she were holding her own hand just above a rising flame, waiting to feel a burn, praying it wouldn’t happen.

Dumbledore, at her back, raised his voice and began to count down. “Three,” he called, “two … _one!_ ”

Feet hit the ground. Thestral wings snapped out. A motorcycle engine roared. Seven Potters and their protectors shot up into the night sky.

Hermione felt a _snap_ as if of surface tension as they broke out of the protective enchantments.

She screamed. Dozens of Death Eaters were shooting toward them from all directions, black bullets out of the dark.

“Hold on!” Dumbledore ordered. Hermione bent low over the Thestral’s neck, and the winged horse flung itself forward, letting out a strange wild cry of alarm as a streak of light shot over its head. Hermione threw a look back, trying to see any of the others, but all she could see were multicolored lights bursting in clusters like roman candles, each a little pocket of battle. Already they were so far away from each other.

Harry had gone due North, Dumbledore had mentioned that. She squinted that way, gasping as the wind buffeted her, and saw that Dumbledore’s instincts had been good. The lights there were fewer and thinner.

Clutching to the tiny bit of reassurance, Hermione turned her eyes forward again, only to realize that they hadn’t been nearly so lucky as Hagrid and Harry. The Death Eaters who had targeted them were stabilizing around them, preparing to fight. They had drawn half a dozen, maybe more.

A Stunning spell spiraled toward her out of the black. “Protego!” she cried, before remembering all the practice she and Ron had done to master nonverbal Shielding at the Burrow. The instinct had gone out of her—it felt safer to scream, to let out the fear somehow—but at the next burst of light she forced herself to think, _Protego!_ and the Death Eater’s curse rebounded back at him.

She could feel Dumbledore moving behind her, blocking several curses and hexes with a single long sweep of his wand. “ _Parasalvus!_ ” he cried, and a shivering translucent wall seemed to curve around Hermione, blocking everything that came near her. She could feel Dumbledore shaking. _It’s the cold,_ she thought wildly, _he’s only shivering from the cold,_ and yet she was horribly aware of his dead hand, and the thinness of his other wrist.

He was sending spells so quickly now, and with such immense power, that she couldn’t believe the Death Eaters were managing to dodge them. Dumbledore sent a stream of silver light humming toward Bellatrix Lestrange, making her and her broom freeze in midair; in the wake of it, Hermione felt the hair on the nape of her neck stand up. Another he encased in a web of what seemed to be purple electricity, and the man dropped like a stone, disappearing almost at once. _We really are going to be all right,_ Hermione told herself. _We are._

Then a familiar face rose up before them. In the center of a cadre of Death Eaters was Severus Snape, his face twisted, shocks of light cartwheeling across his sallow features. Hermione’s stomach plummeted. Why was Snape here? And why, when Snape was supposed to have fed Voldemort incorrect information, had there been Death Eaters here?

There was only one answer to both questions.

Snape raised his wand. Hermione knew he was going to say the words before he said them, knew he was going to snarl, “ _Avada Kedavra!_ ”

She knew the shield around her would break.

She knew Dumbledore’s body would topple off the Thestral behind her, and yet the sudden absence of his reassuring weight—the way his robes brushed her knee as he plummeted—was so horrible that she nearly let her wand fall out of her nerveless hand.

Her mouth was wide open but hardly any sound was coming from it, only a high keen that hit her own ear like the sound of an animal in pain. Horror reverberated through her. She couldn’t lift her wand, couldn’t breathe. She could only wait for Snape to kill her, too, or to take her, as Harry, back to Voldemort.

Then the Thestral lurched and bucked. One of the Death Eaters’ curses had struck the creature across the flank.

Hermione’s grip on the Thestral had loosened. She was off-balance. Still in shock, she grappled too late for the Thestral's neck.

She toppled, the scream finally tearing free of her, into thin air.

“That isn’t Potter’s wand,” she heard Snape roar as she fell. “Leave that one! We must find the real …”

It was terrifying how quickly his voice evaporated. Hermione was moving so quickly, plummeting like a stone. She had fallen a hundred feet, maybe more. The Death Eaters were no longer even in sight.

Then she caught a glimpse of something in the night air, falling through a wisp of cloud: Dumbledore’s body, several dozen feet beneath her, falling toward the Earth.

Something in her ignited. Some of the madness cleared out of her head. She clutched her wand, spreading her arms to stabilize her body, Harry’s body, and screamed, _“Accio!”_

Dumbledore’s body slowed in its descent, then, in a sad, almost graceful motion, lifted toward her like a piece of ash, as if he were weightless. Her hand closed around his wrist. His bones were as brittle as a bird’s.

Then a voice above her roared, terrifyingly close, “Petrificus Totalus!”

Hermione flinched. The spell missed her by a centimeter. She turned, thrown off-balance, to see the twisted face of Antonin Dolohov. He clearly hadn’t believed Snape. And now she was tumbling head over foot again, the wind snatching the duplicate of Harry’s glasses from her face, the houses below transforming into a blur. Dolohov’s vague form was rocketing toward her on a broom, stretching out a dark shape that must have been his arm—

Hermione focused with all her might on her destination and turned in mid-air.

_Crack._

* * *

“If we’re sent to the United States,” said Draco’s mother, lifting a bite of pie to her mouth, “I know an excellent school where Draco could finish the last of his education. It’s quite exclusive. The headmaster is a friend of my father’s.”

“Narcissa,” said Lucius, “by the time it would be safe for us to use that kind of contact, Draco would hardly be school-aged anymore.” He sipped from a glass of elf-made wine that Kreacher had pulled from somewhere beneath the house. There must have been a cellar Draco hadn’t found.

Draco tapped his fork against the stem of his own wineglass. “Don’t either of you want to know what I think about my own education? I _am_ of age.”

His father opened his mouth to reply, but then there was an almighty _crack._

Three people exploded out of the air, falling in a pile of limbs to the kitchen floor.

Narcissa let out a scream and leapt to her feet. Lucius, still weak from Azkaban, staggered out of his seat and had to clutch to the counter to remain upright. Two of the figures on the ground were already writhing up to their feet—one a boy with untidy jet-black hair, the other a man with a familiar twisted face.

Draco was on his feet, too, though he couldn’t remember standing. He stared with horror at Antonin Dolohov, who was raising his wand.

Then Dolohov saw the Malfoys and froze. His face went white. “You,” he croaked. “ _You!_ ”

Narcissa reacted first, slashing her wand up, but Dolohov ducked her curse. It rebounded off one of the pans hanging from the ceiling, forcing Lucius to throw himself flat. Draco looked back to see Potter raising his wand—and to see Dolohov’s finger colliding with his left forearm.

“ _Stupefy!”_ Draco yelled.

But even as his spell struck Dolohov, causing the man to fly back into the wall and crumple, Draco felt the Mark burn black on his own forearm.

Silence dropped, except for the heaving of breath. Only then did Draco register the third figure: a crumpled body with long silver hair and beard, motionless.

Draco looked up at Potter, who was gasping, an uncharacteristic wild panic on his face. He looked unfamiliar; he’d lost his glasses.

“Draco,” his mother cried out. “Draco, we must go! Now!”

But Draco was still staring at Potter, whose face had begun to change, melting, softening. For a second Draco thought he really had gone mad, that all of this was the result of a psychotic break. But a moment later the hair was growing bushy and wild, and the green eyes were turning brown. The chin lifted. The lips grew smaller and fuller. He blinked his eyes hard, and when he opened them, Hermione Granger was standing before him, panic written all over her face.

Lucius strode to the mantel and seized a jar full of Floo Powder. “Where?” he said, turning to his wife. “Somewhere safe. Where?”

Narcissa just shook her head, looking like she was about to faint.

“The Burrow,” gasped Granger. “Go to the Burrow!”

Narcissa didn’t hesitate. She took a pinch of green powder and flung it on the grate, stepped over the massive hearth, and said, “The Burrow!”

Nothing happened. The green flame died around her.

“The opposite grate is closed,” Narcissa said, turning back. Her composure had cracked completely now, her blue eyes wild. “They’ll be coming now. He touched—they’ll be here any minute, Lucius—Dolohov, he saw—”

“Here, then!” said Granger. “Hurry!”

All three Malfoys stared at her for a moment. She was holding out a hand.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she yelled, panic in her voice, “would you rather touch a Mudblood or die? _Take my hand_ _now!_ ”

Draco was the first to move. He seized Granger’s hand, and his mother and father formed a chain with his other hand. Granger stooped to grasp Dumbledore’s wrist.

In that moment, Narcissa let out a little cry, her eyes fixed across the kitchen. Dolohov was stirring again.

Lucius lifted his wand with his free hand. There was a blast of green light, and Dolohov toppled, lifeless, to the ground. Draco jumped so violently that he nearly let go of Granger.

There was a _crack_ somewhere outside the room, down the hall. A second _crack._ A third.

Loud, indistinct voices.

Granger turned on her heel. The crushing darkness of Disapparition closed in around Draco’s head. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t shift an inch, could only clutch to his mother’s hand in his left, the coldness of her silver rings pressing against his fingers, and to Granger’s in his right, warm and small and holding on so hard that he thought she might crack a metacarpal.

They reappeared on a stretch of hardwood floor. Draco let go of his mother, who instantly folded, still gasping, her eyes wild, into his father’s arms.

Granger, breathing hard too, was facing away from Draco. For a long moment she didn’t move at all. Then she knelt slowly beside Dumbledore’s body and slowly, deliberately arranged him into a relaxed position, as if he were sleeping. She moved the silver hair out of his face. The half-moon spectacles were cracked in one lens. Granger lowered her wand to them and whispered, “ _Reparo._ ”

The fissure sealed over, but Granger didn’t stand. She stayed on her knees, trembling. Draco watched her with a sense of impossible distance. He’d known this would happen, had known Dumbledore would die. He just hadn’t known he would see it. He remembered the weight of the wand in his hand as he stood atop the Astronomy Tower, and a terrible, thunderous kind of relief dropped onto him that he hadn’t done this. Even so, he heard his own voice saying, two weeks ago, _I’m not going to try and stop you._

 _Don’t let it be Snape,_ he found himself thinking now. _Don’t let it have been him that did it._

“Who …” he forced out. “How did it happen?”

“Pro … Professor Snape,” said Granger. She was crying, he could hear it in her voice, but she didn’t turn around, didn’t want him to see. Maybe she thought he would mock her if he saw.

Draco looked around the room in a daze. It was a large and finely furnished sitting room. A large Persian rug stretched out beneath a long, elegant leather couch. A wall of bookshelves stood opposite an empty fireplace. On an oak table, across from the couch, stood a strange black box with two metal spindles extending from its top.

“What is this place?” he said.

Granger had wiped her face. She rose to her feet and looked over at him, her eyes red, her cheeks pink.

“It’s my house,” she answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	3. The Midnight Vigil

“ _Your_ house?” said Lucius Malfoy, aghast.

Hermione didn’t bother answering. She fixed her eyes on the bookshelves and breathed, trying to draw some comfort from the familiar scents of home, maple candles and old pages and soft leather.

It didn’t work. Her eyes had found a photo of herself and her parents. She was six, ready for her first day of primary school, one of their hands on each of her shoulders. And now her mind was summoning the image she’d ruminated over dozens of times: her parents lying in bed the night she’d modified their memories, her mother’s hair in a nightcap, her father’s mouth slightly open. As she’d left for the Burrow that night, she’d wanted so badly to go back and say goodbye. If something happened to her during their hunt for the Horcruxes … if she never had the chance to say it …

She’d refused to acknowledge the possibilities then, but now her eyes slid back onto Dumbledore’s cold, thin body, and she knew she’d been right to expect the worst.

The knowledge was strangely stabilizing. At least she could stop telling herself that she was being overanxious. Here was proof that the world was as dangerous as it felt.

“There’s nowhere else you could have taken us than a Muggle house?” said Narcissa, not bothering to veil her disgust.

“No. The Order’s safehouses are all in use tonight to move Harry.”

“Of course,” Draco muttered under his breath.

Hermione ignored him. _Wingardium Leviosa,_ she thought, flicking her wand. Dumbledore’s body rose gently from the ground, and she walked him over to the sofa and let him settle there. She knew it was ridiculous to think that he looked uncomfortable, but after a moment’s consideration, she tucked a pillow beneath his head anyway.

She glanced back at the three Malfoys. Lucius and Narcissa had edged closer together, eyeing the house as if afraid it might contaminate them. Mr. Malfoy looked different now than he had in the dark alleyways of the Department of Mysteries. Azkaban had followed him out into freedom. The once-faint lines in his pointed face had deepened and set as if his skin were candle wax, aging him a decade.

Draco wasn’t looking at the house. His colorless eyes were fixed on Dumbledore’s body.

“Do the Order know he’s dead?” he asked. His voice wasn’t the usual drawl but something unfamiliar, closed-off and hard.

Hermione shook her head. “I was the only one with him. The others won’t even know anything’s wrong on our end for another …” She glanced to a clock on the wall and was disconcerted by how early it still was. The night’s events seemed to have stretched time out like elastic. “Another half an hour, when they start arriving at the Burrow.”

“What, you can’t contact them?” said Draco with a hint of disbelief.

“I—yes, I know we have to, but I can’t think how.” She bit her lip and began to pace across the sitting room. “I don’t know how to cast a messenger Patronus. That’s well past N.E.W.T. standard. And that’s not an option for any of you, obviously—” She glanced at the Malfoys— “in case someone recognizes your Patronuses or voices who shouldn’t. But then …” She stopped pacing. “I don’t suppose you have a way of sending messages? You wouldn’t know where to find an—an owl, or—?”

“An owl?” Lucius Malfoy let out a hard, scathing laugh. “What use would an owl be to any of us when we’re meant to be dead?”

Hermione’s temper flared. “Well, if _you_ have any ideas to get us out of this, I would love to hear them.”

Narcissa drew herself up. “There would be no need to ‘get out of’ anything if you hadn’t Apparated into our hiding place with Dolohov hanging off your robes, you stupid girl.”

Rage filled Hermione like hot tar. It seemed unbelievable that they were blaming _her_ for this. She wanted to say something to defend herself—it had, after all, been impossible to feel Dolohov grabbing a fistful of her robes while she was in freefall—but when she thought of the attack, her mind conjured Snape’s face, full of loathing, and she felt anew the horrible feeling of Dumbledore sliding off the Thestral behind her, his body brushing her as if in farewell, and her stomach began to churn, and her eyes began to sting. She couldn’t make herself vocalize any of it, could only stand there and tremble, suddenly choking on her anger. She could finally appreciate why Harry hardly ever spoke about Cedric’s death, even now, years after the graveyard.

Draco turned away from Dumbledore’s body. Hermione steeled herself for him to pile on, too. She didn’t know what foul thing would come out of his mouth, but she thought if it was a crack about her family, here, in the house that she’d had to say goodbye to, she might just start crying from rage.

But he just said, “What about those coins?”

She didn’t understand for a moment. “Coins?” she repeated.

“The Galleons, Granger,” he said impatiently. “The ones you and that group had.”

“Oh,” she said, flustered. She gave her head a little shake to clear it. “Mine is at the Burrow with all my things. Besides, I doubt Harry and Ron would think to check them. We haven’t used them since fifth year …”

But as she thought back to fifth year, and their ill-fated journey to the Department of Mysteries, it hit her. “The Ministry!” she exclaimed.

All three Malfoys stared at her as if she’d gone mad.

“Oh, yeah,” said Draco after a long moment. “The Ministry. Brilliant idea, Granger, just brilliant. We’ll stroll in and ask to see—”

“Not _you_ ,” she said impatiently. “I’ll Apparate to the visitors’ entrance tomorrow under a Disillusionment Charm. Mr. Weasley’s been on overtime there all summer, so he’ll have to be in by seven in the morning. I’ll ask him to connect our fireplace to the Floo temporarily, and we can all move to the Burrow tomorrow.”

No response from the Malfoys.

“There’ll be room for us to stay here tonight,” Hermione added. “My parents are … they’re vacationing abroad.”

Still, nothing. Narcissa seemed to have noticed the television. She was watching it warily as if expecting it to explode.

Their silence and looks of distaste wore down Hermione’s patience in seconds. “Well,” she said shortly, “it’s this or go somewhere the Death Eaters will find you within minutes. Take your pick. I’m going to put some protective enchantments on the house.”

She stalked off, leaving them there. Hopefully they would say whatever foul things they were all thinking about Muggles while she was out of the room. Flush it out of their systems.

All of July, Hermione had been trying not to let her misgivings about the Malfoys overwhelm her, but, good God, they made it difficult. It rankled at her now, as it had for weeks, that the Order were sheltering a family who hadn’t even bothered to _pretend_ that they’d changed their minds about pureblood supremacy—people who would have gone back to Voldemort in a heartbeat, if they’d had any guarantee of their safety and status.

Now that Dumbledore could no longer offer the Malfoys protection, would they take their chances with Voldemort? Would they spin some story about only accepting Dumbledore’s help so that they could infiltrate the Order of the Phoenix?

Ron, who was rather braver than she was at Order meetings, had voiced this idea at the full meeting two weeks ago. Dumbledore had insisted that Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy would never risk returning to Voldemort, out of fear for Draco’s life.

“But what if Draco’s in on it too,” Ron had said, “and they all pretend they were loyal the whole time? What if they pretend they were just … just going undercover, or something? They could give You-Know-Who the location of headquarters. They’ve seen all our members going in or out. They have a load of information they could tell him.”

“They can’t give him the location of headquarters, Weasley,” McGonagall had said briskly. “The parchment with the address we showed to each of them had a Tongue-Tying hex on it. They can’t repeat the information.”

“Well, still,” Ron insisted, “what about our members? Wouldn’t You-Know-Who take the Malfoys back if they told him the names of everyone in the Order?”

“Ah,” Dumbledore had said with his usual serene smile, “this is where Lord Voldemort differs from you or I, Mr. Weasley. You, a great player of chess, as I understand it—” Here he’d inclined his head first to Ron, then to Professor McGonagall— “are thinking in terms of strategy. Lord Voldemort, on the other hand, thinks in terms of absolute, unwavering loyalty. He detests the idea of seeming any less than omniscient, and so he would be furious to learn that the Malfoys were still alive when he thought them to be dead.”

“What,” Ron said with clear disbelief, “you mean he’d give up a chance to learn about the Order, just to teach them a lesson?”

“Oh, no, certainly not,” Dumbledore said. “He would indeed extract any information about the Order that he could from the Malfoys. Some they might give willingly. Names and identities, as you say. Other information he would wring out of them by torture and Legilimency, or by torturing one family member to question another. Then, once he had what he needed, he would kill them for what he would perceive as an unforgivable lapse in the fealty they swore him.” Dumbledore sighed. “Draco’s life in particular would be forsaken twice over, as he failed in the mission the Dark Lord set him. The Malfoys, who have lived in the shadow of Voldemort for most of their lives, understand this. I do not think they would accept such a fate merely to further Voldemort’s cause.”

Ron, who had gone rather pale, had not asked any more questions.

 _But,_ Hermione thought, climbing the steps to the attic, _Dumbledore was wrong about Snape_. And the headmaster’s trust in Snape had cost him his life. Had Dumbledore made other miscalculations? Had he put too little faith in the Malfoys’ devotion to the cause, or too much faith in their love for their son? What if Voldemort felt predisposed to overlook Draco’s failure now that Snape had completed the mission for him?

As Hermione pushed up the attic window and leaned out to cast enchantments into the summer night, she wished she could talk about all this with Ron and Harry. She wanted to be at the Burrow with them so badly that it felt as if something had stuck in her throat—as if she would not breathe or speak clearly again until they were reunited, and she knew they were safe.

“ _Protego Totalum,”_ she whispered.

 _They are safe,_ she told herself, over and over, in a sort of mantra. Still, even if— _when!_ —both Harry and Ron returned to the Burrow unharmed, she could imagine how they would panic when she didn’t come back. They would want to hunt for her, to leave the house, while the rest of the Order would absolutely forbid it.

“ _Repello Muggletum …”_

She could imagine them lying awake in Ron’s room later that night, Ron monologuing anxiously in a low voice about how she was with Dumbledore, and nothing could hurt her while she was with Dumbledore. Harry, on the camp bed, would be staring at the ceiling in silence, only letting out the occasional “Yeah” and “Mm,” but she could imagine the way his brilliantly green eyes would crinkle with worry.

“ _Salvio Hexia.”_

By morning Ron would be angry and agitated, taking out his mood on Ginny only to apologize minutes later, and Harry would have turned into that quiet, serious man he sometimes became when things were particularly bad—the man he wouldn’t have grown into yet, in a perfect world.

Hermione lowered her wand, lowered the sash, and went for the stairs.

* * *

Draco couldn’t sleep.

Granger had situated his parents in the master bedroom, where they’d stood in momentary horror at the array of devices lined up in the bathroom. Granger had said they were meant to stave off cavities and tooth decay, but they definitely looked like torture instruments and Draco would not be putting any of them near his face.

She’d shown him to a smaller bedroom on the ground floor with a wide, soft bed. He hadn’t thought it was late enough to try to sleep, but the moment he’d settled onto the mattress, a wave of tiredness had rolled over him.

He should have fought the instinct, he thought irritably now as he turned over. He’d reawakened at one in the morning. Now it was half-past two, and he was still wide awake, staring into the semidarkness. There was a streetlamp just outside the window, and the curtains weren’t quite opaque, so everything was tinted orange: the mahogany desk in the corner, the anonymous white dresser, the brass lamp with its drooped neck and hanging shade.

Images kept passing across his vision. Occasionally he saw Dumbledore’s face tinted green atop the Astronomy Tower, or Dumbledore’s face pressed into the kitchen tiles of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, as if his cheek were the sole of a shoe, just any other object.

Mostly, though, he found himself thinking of Dolohov. Dolohov spinning slightly as Draco’s Stunner had hit him. Dolohov stirring on the floor, only to be struck by his father’s _Avada Kedavra_. The way he’d slumped, lifeless, back into place.

Something in Draco’s mind was stuck inside that instant, the moment the green light had connected with Dolohov’s body. It had happened so quickly. His father had cast the Killing Curse the same way he’d done so much everyday magic at home, summoning books or drawing curtains, conjuring a Transfigured zoo for Draco’s amusement on his eighth birthday.

Draco knew his father had killed before, but the idea had always been abstract. Now he wondered how many people his father had killed in total. He wondered too, not for the first time, whether he’d disappointed his father by failing to kill Dumbledore. They’d so studiously avoided the subject at Grimmauld Place that an objective observer might have thought they’d all wound up there by sheer accident.

His father wouldn’t have hesitated to kill Dumbledore. That much was obvious now.

Was it a sign of weakness, that Draco had hesitated?

He pictured his parents in the room one floor above him, and wondered whether his father was sleeping soundly, or whether he was disturbed at all by killing Dolohov, who had been closer to the family than most of the other Death Eaters. The man hadn’t been friendly—hardly anyone would be, after nearly fourteen years in Azkaban—but he had been respectful of Draco, had treated him like an adult where most of the Dark Lord’s followers had treated him with condescension.

Dolohov had even said, over the last Christmas holiday, that Draco had done well to think up the plan with the Vanishing Cabinet. “If this plan of yours does work,” he’d said, eyeing Draco with interest, “the Dark Lord will certainly want to see more from you in future.” Then he’d inclined his head slightly to Narcissa and said, “You’ve raised your son well, Narcissa.”

Draco remembered the odd silence that had followed that sentence. He’d known the implication was that Dolohov would be sorry to see Draco die if he failed.

 _Could we have modified his memory instead?_ said a quiet voice in the back of Draco’s mind, but he stamped the thought back at once. That sort of thinking would get him killed. The Dark Lord had shattered Barty Crouch’s memory charm on Bertha Jorkins in fourth year, and Crouch had set that charm so forcefully on her that it hadn’t just held for years but deepened over time. There was no hiding from the Dark Lord. No room for nuance or affection or protection. There was only truth, and death.

Draco sat up, his mouth dry, and went to get a glass of water.

He moved quietly through the ground floor of the house, glancing around as he went. The place hadn’t come as a surprise, exactly, because he’d never been remotely curious about Granger’s upbringing. Still, if he’d been asked to guess what a Muggle house might be like, this wouldn’t have factored anywhere into his expectations.

First, most obviously and strangely, it seemed that Granger came from some money. The house was large and spacious, with wide halls and clean deep-piled rugs, and many frozen Muggle photographs hung on the walls, each depicting the Grangers on different vacations. Here they were on a French beach, and there, bundled up in their odd clothes on the slopes of the Alps, and over there, laughing in street markets in idyllic towns. And while none of the house’s furniture would ever have been found in Malfoy Manor, there was a clean, distinct style to it, a coordination between rooms and pieces that made Draco feel as if he’d walked into a world that had existed, and been evolving, for a long time.

Obviously Draco had known Muggles couldn’t _all_ be mud-covered farmers and witch-burning mob members, like they usually were in textbooks, but his mother in particular had always associated the Muggle world with the total absence of refinement or culture. It was hard not to feel a bit disoriented.

Even more uncomfortable was being forced to think about Granger growing up here, probably dashing through the halls carrying stacks of books, reciting facts to her parents. He hadn’t asked for a window into her life. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted her wandering around _his_ house, thinking about _his_ childhood.

The kitchen was a long, silvery room filled with an audible hum that made Draco uneasy. A large metal refrigerator rumbled as he passed, making him flinch. Had it been hexed?

He checked half a dozen different cabinets before he found the glasses, filled one as quickly as possible, and hurried out of the kitchen, glancing back at the refrigerator with narrowed eyes.

When he reached the end of the hall, he stopped so suddenly that water leapt over the rim of the glass and slapped against the hardwood. A light had been turned on in the front room. Something was moving there. His stomach clenched, preparing him to flee, until he realized it was only Granger.

She was sitting on the ground, facing away from Draco, beside the sofa where Dumbledore’s body lay. She’d changed into Muggle clothes, a huge, soft-looking T-shirt and a pair of black leggings. Her feet were bare. Her shoulders were moving strangely, as if she were patting something on the floor where he couldn’t see. After several long seconds, though, a gasping noise came from her, and Draco realized she was crying. It wasn’t shallow catching of breath, either, but intense, full-body sobbing that radiated through her in waves.

Draco froze, certain that if he moved, she would notice. He stood there with the glass of water in his hand, and the longer he stared at her, the more he felt as if he had actually fallen sleep and none of this was happening. Was he, Draco Malfoy, actually standing here in a Muggle house, watching Hermione Granger, the obnoxious know-it-all he’d recreationally loathed for six years, sob over the corpse of Albus Dumbledore? How in Merlin’s name had he ended up here?

He needed to get out of this somehow. His room was so close … surely he could make it. He took a step forward, toward the door.

The floorboard emitted a deafening creak.

Draco’s heart dropped. Granger whipped around. “Ah,” she said, wiping her cheeks hurriedly, mortification on her shining face. Her nose was abraded and her eyes swollen, so that she looked like a slightly incorrect painting of herself. Draco had a clear, sudden vision of Pansy Parkinson, her eyes filling with tears last year when he’d told her impatiently that he didn’t have time for her anymore. He’d had no idea what to say then, either.

“I—I told him about Snape,” Draco said, too loudly. “Dumbledore. I said not to believe Snape was—he didn’t listen to me.”

Granger didn’t respond immediately. She looked back at Dumbledore’s body for a moment before saying, “I know.”

Draco didn’t ask how she knew. It probably involved Potter somehow.

Another uncomfortable pause. Draco wondered if it would be reasonable to just go into the bedroom and shut the door.

Then Granger took a shaky breath. “Dumbledore was so sure about him,” she said, her voice small but clear. “I don’t know why he trusted Snape so much.”

Draco curled his lip. “Because he trusted everyone.”

Granger shot him an annoyed look. “There’s no need for that tone. You’re only here because he trusted _you_.”

“Yeah, well, maybe he shouldn’t have.” Draco registered a wary shift in her expression and rolled his eyes, sidling into the sitting room so they could keep their voices down. “I’m not going to blow up your house, Granger, calm down. I’m just saying he never behaved like this was a war, did he? No, he was too busy acting noble.”

The annoyance on her face hardened into indignation. “He wasn’t acting,” she said hotly, rising to her feet. “I think it’s admirable that he still believed in people’s better natures in all this.”

“Oh, well, as long as you and the rest of Gryffindor House think it’s _admirable._ That’ll be a real comfort to him now.” Draco let out a hard laugh and set his glass of water on a side table. “I hate to disillusion you, Granger, but Dumbledore didn’t act like that because he _believed in people’s better natures_. God, are you actually that naïve?”

Her hands had balled into fists at her thighs. “Just say what you think, Malfoy, and stop congratulating yourself for having an opinion.”

“Fine. The old man trusted people because he thought he knew everything about everyone. He didn’t think anyone could possibly surprise him. He wasn’t being noble, Granger, he was being arrogant. And now look where it’s gotten him.”

Draco cast a contemptuous glance at Dumbledore, realizing, even as he did it, that he was furious with the dead man: furious that he’d died uselessly at Snape’s hands, rather than using his legendary skill to fight the Dark Lord; furious that he had thrown away the safety of Draco’s family; furious that he had somehow coerced Draco into believing—ridiculously—that he could keep them safe. And even more than that, Draco was livid with himself for believing it.

Snape, at least, had kept his word to Draco. The Potions Master had waited ten full days after Lucius had arrived in Grimmauld Place to kill Dumbledore. Draco should have made use of that time, should have demanded an audience with Dumbledore and ensured the old man got them out of the country within the month. If Dumbledore really _had_ made plans for their long-term safety, those plans were lost now, gone from the brain that lay dead inside the skull, a pound or two of useless flesh.

When he looked back at Granger, she was giving him that same piercing stare she’d directed at him in Grimmauld Place. There was a cartoon whale on the front of her giant T-shirt. Her hair was even unrulier than usual, falling in tangles and puffs and stray curls over her shoulders.

“What?” he said coldly.

She shook her head and looked away. “Maybe you’re right,” she said, so quietly and grudgingly that he nearly didn’t catch the words.

There was another uncomfortable pause.

“What is that _thing_ , anyway?” Draco asked, nodding at the black box with the glass face, which had been staring at him in his peripherals.

She glanced over at it, and her expression smoothed slightly. “It’s a television.” She picked up a small black box from an end table, aimed it like a wand at this ‘television,’ and pressed a button on its surface.

The front of the box blazed into light. There were two Muggles behind the glass walking down a street, moving like a photograph, and even as Draco watched, the image changed to a profile view of the Muggles, as if they were surrounded by invisible photographers. They were speaking, too, though the noise from the box was too quiet for him to make out the words.

“What is— _what?_ ” he said, staring dumbfounded at the box. Was it a kind of Muggle Pensieve? “What does it do? Why is it doing that?”

“Well, this is a television show,” said Granger, sounding amused now. “It’s a serialized story that you see a bit more of every week. But it can do all sorts of things. It can tell you the day’s news any time, so you don’t have to wait for the paper. And …” She pressed another button, and the image on the screen skewed, then flashed into something else entirely, a Muggle man pointing to a large, shiny car, exclaiming something about interest rates. “Well, that’s an advertisement,” said Granger. “There are lots of those. And—” She pressed the changing button again, and now there was a Muggle sitting astride a bear the size of a small house. “That’s a film. A story that takes about an hour and a half.”

“But … but—” Draco pointed at the television. “That bear’s been Engorged! That’s against the Statute of Secrecy!”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she sighed, “of course it hasn’t been Engorged. It’s a visual effect. Filmmakers use them to make us think we’re seeing something out of the ordinary.”

Draco didn’t answer. Granger clicked the button again, and the screen went dark. “You’d know all this,” she said with faint exasperation, “if you took Muggle Studies. This is exactly why it should be mandatory.”

That brought Draco out of his trance. He blinked a few times, a dark rectangle still seared into his vision from where he’d been staring at the television, and snorted. “ _Muggle Studies?_ I’d sooner take Divination. Or a slow-acting poison. Or a kick to the—”

“All I’m saying,” Granger interrupted, that familiar sanctimonious look on her face, “is that you wouldn’t be asking such embarrassing questions now if you’d been able to ask them in a classroom environment when you were thirteen.”

Draco gave her a withering look. He didn’t need this. “I’m going to bed,” he said with as much disgust as he could fit into five syllables.

“Fine. Goodnight.” She paused with a light frown. “Why are you awake, anyway?”

“Because taking the night air is good for my delicate humours, Granger.” He picked up his water and pretended to be surprised by the sight of it. “Surely this glass has nothing to do with anything.”

His hand was on the bedroom doorknob when her voice said behind him, “Had … had you seen him do that before?”

Draco stopped mid-step, sure for a moment that he’d misheard her. “Seen—what?”

“Your father. He killed that man. Dolohov.” She paused. “You must have known him.”

Draco turned slowly on the spot. Granger, standing at the foot of the stairs now, looked a bit apprehensive, but she didn’t take the question back.

Draco’s heart was beating a bit too quickly. He was unnerved. He tried to remember if he’d said anything about Dolohov, anything at all to suggest he’d been thinking about it. He didn’t think he had, but then, how could she have known?

Then a rush of defensive anger overrode his doubts. It was none of Granger’s business what his father had done, or what Draco had seen him do. Why was she asking, anyway? Trying to wring information out of him that she’d parrot back to Weasley and Potter, no doubt. And then they’d start judging his father the same way they’d judged him. That was all Gryffindors did, really: compare themselves favorably to other groups of people. And they thought they were so saintly.

Draco summoned his usual contempt as he looked at Granger. He’d felt it for so long that it was effortless. Maybe the girl even thought, knowing his failure to kill Dumbledore, that he was too fragile to handle the idea of death. But he wasn’t like her, sniveling and bawling over something inevitable. His father had needed to kill Dolohov, or his family’s necks would have been on the line. Draco wasn’t sorry about it. He wasn’t.

“What,” he sneered, “was Dolohov a friend of yours? Wanted to ask me to leave roses on his grave?”

Oddly, Granger didn’t look angry. She looked almost resigned. “No,” she said. “I was going to thank you for Stunning him before he killed me, actually, but I suppose I shouldn’t have bothered. You’re a real pig, you know that, Malfoy?”

She stalked up the stairs, and he watched the textures of her hair and clothes fade into the blue-grey darkness, feeling irritated, and confused, but mostly irritated. She was misremembering the order of events. He hadn’t Stunned Dolohov to save her, for Merlin’s sake—he’d done it because the man had reached for his Mark. He hadn’t even known that _was_ her, since she’d been Polyjuiced at the time. So it wasn’t as if he’d thrown her a lifeline.

He shut the door to the bedroom a bit too hard. Later, on the edge of sleep, he would think of her hand thrust out to him and his family in the dingy light of the kitchen, and he would think, vaguely, feeling unsettled, that that was what a lifeline looked like.

* * *

Hermione was hardly out of the fireplace at the Burrow before Harry and Ron were hugging her so hard that the breath was squeezed out of her. “I’m all right,” she gasped. “Really, you two, I’m—I’m all right.” They pulled back slightly. Ron was looking her over as if checking for missing limbs. Harry was just staring into her face, dark circles under his eyes, as haggard and sleepless as he’d looked the day after Sirius’s death.

Then another body slammed into all three of them, making them stagger. “ _Ow,_ ” complained Draco Malfoy’s voice. “Could you please _move_ the tearful reunion?”

He lurched away from them, straightening up, and scanned the Burrow’s kitchen, which was even more crowded than usual, every surface stacked with decorations for Bill and Fleur’s wedding. “Ah,” Malfoy said, scorn written in every line of his face. “Of course, that would require room to move.”

Ron went scarlet. “You—”

“Leave it, Ron,” Hermione sighed, tugging him and Harry away. She threw an angry look back at Malfoy, who watched them go with glittering malevolence. His gaze skated across hers, and in that instant she remembered him standing with his hand on the guest bedroom’s doorknob, looking utterly thrown by her question about his father. She hadn’t missed that expression, although he’d pulled _that_ look over his face quickly to cover it, the sneer he was wearing now.

She understood now why Harry had sounded so unsettled when he’d recounted the events atop the Astronomy Tower. It was bizarre to see something other than condescension on Malfoy’s face. Harry had tried to describe it, the way Malfoy had wheeled wildly between insulting Dumbledore and showing a bizarre need for his approval and protection. There was something frustrating, yet oddly enthralling, about watching him struggle to keep his persona in place.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were already having a stiff, strained conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, who had come out of the fire and were dusting off the sleeves of their robes, looking disdainfully around at the kitchen. A pot on the stove was bubbling, emitting a delicious smell, as a wooden spoon twirled around independently in its contents.

“Come on,” said Ron, already heading for the staircase. “My room. You’ve got to tell us everything. Dad told us … Dumbledore … blimey, Hermione, what _happened?_ ”

They holed up in Ron’s room. By the time she finished recounting the story, tears were running down her face again, though she had exhausted most of her sobs last night. Ron’s arm was around her shoulder, and the weight was comforting, although Hermione hadn’t missed the uncertain look that Ron had shot across the bed when Harry had touched Hermione lightly on the forearm in reassurance.

“But this changes everything,” Ron said as Hermione wiped her eyes. He glanced at the door and lowered his voice. “Harry, do you reckon we can still hunt down the Horcruxes without Dumbledore?”

Harry didn’t answer right away. Hermione thought she recognized that look of reluctance. “Don’t tell us not to come with you, Harry,” she said, “because it’s no good.”

“Don’t worry,” Ron said. “He tried that already. I talked him out of it.”

Hermione glanced at Harry for confirmation. He made an unhappy mumbling sound, but didn’t contradict Ron.

“Anyway, I just mean …” Ron hesitated. “Well, we’ve got no help anymore, have we? I thought we’d be setting out to hunt for a Horcrux trail, the three of us, and we’d sort of … check back in with Dumbledore when we found something, and he’d help us the rest of the way. Or, you know, I thought he’d give us a way to reach him, so if we ever got into real trouble, he could …”

Ron trailed off, the tips of his ears turning red. Hermione could tell that he was embarrassed to have been so reassured by the idea of Dumbledore’s constant help and protection, but she understood completely. She, too, felt like a comforting blanket had been stripped away from them, leaving them exposed and vulnerable.

Harry was also nodding. “Yeah,” he admitted, “that was what I thought, as well.”

Ron looked slightly relieved. “So, then, what do we do now?” He paused. “Do you think we should—I dunno, tell McGonagall?”

There was a brief silence. The ghoul moaned in the attic. Harry reached over to the bedside table and took the fake locket with R.A.B.’s note in it, turning it over and over in his hand.

“No,” Harry said quietly. “I think it’s up to us, now.”

A lump grew in Hermione’s throat. Ron let out a slow breath, looking slightly awed at the enormity of their task.

“I’ll be honest, Harry,” Hermione said, “this worries me. It really does. From what you told us about the cave, it sounds like we’ll be dealing with enchantments and sorcery that are far beyond what any of us can do. Not just beyond what we learn at school, I mean, but the kind of advanced magic that most wizards _never_ manage. Without Dumbledore’s help …”

Harry met her eyes, and she knew they were thinking the same thing. The Prophecy had said Harry had powers the Dark Lord knew not, but the fact remained that Voldemort could perform feats of wizardry that only Dumbledore, and perhaps Grindelwald, had managed this century.

“Oh, lighten up, Hermione,” said Ron, with a good try at casual bravado. “I mean, I’ve always fancied myself basically equal to You-Know-Who in terms of sheer magical power, so I reckon we’ve got a good shot.”

Harry and Hermione both grinned, but when their smiles faded, the question still remained.

“We’ll find a way,” Harry said, after a moment. “Dumbledore didn’t tell anyone else besides us. He must have thought we were up to it.”

He turned the locket over again, then sat bolt upright. “Oh, no.”

“What?” Hermione and Ron said together.

Harry looked between them, his eyes wide. “The sword. It’s in Dumbledore’s office.”

Ron swore loudly. Hermione closed her eyes. The day after Harry and Dumbledore had returned to Hogwarts with the fake locket, Dumbledore had told him to fetch the Sword of Gryffindor to the Hospital Wing. They’d intended to use it on the locket, because, Dumbledore had told Harry, the goblin-forged object had been impregnated with the Basilisk venom it had touched in their second year, making it one of very few objects that could destroy Horcruxes. Then, of course, they had taken the locket from Dumbledore’s pocket to realize it was a fake.

“What if we just ask McGonagall to … to borrow the sword?” Ron said.

They all looked at each other.

“You think Minerva McGonagall would let us borrow the Sword of Gryffindor,” said Harry dubiously, “without knowing why? And without insisting that we stay in Hogwarts like good little students once we’ve got in touch with her?”

Ron grimaced. “Well, when you put it that way, no, not a chance in hell, no.”

“I don’t know,” Hermione said thoughtfully. “I think Professor McGonagall might be the Order member who’s most loyal to Dumbledore. Well, and Hagrid,” she added. “Neither of them have ever questioned Dumbledore’s judgment. If we told her that he’d left us with a task, I don’t think she would necessarily rule it out. In fact,” she said hopefully, “if it’s on Dumbledore’s orders, I think there’s a small chance she might even offer us her help without asking too many questions.”

They mulled it over for a while longer. Hermione could tell that Harry and Ron were feeling as bolstered as she was by the idea of the formidable witch on their side, a stabilizing force in the sudden uncertainty of their quest.

“You know,” Ron said slowly, “I reckon you could be right, Hermione. Do you think we could get word to her to ask?”

“Well, we can’t put that in writing, that’s for sure,” Harry said. “And now that we’ve lost headquarters … well, I don’t fancy waiting for McGonagall to visit the Burrow before we can talk to her. I think we should go to Hogwarts and speak with her. They’re …” He looked down at the locket again. “They’re saying that’s where Dumbledore’s funeral will be. It should be safe if we go then.”

“Yes, I think so,” Hermione said quietly. She wanted to squeeze Harry’s hand in comfort, but was suddenly very aware of how close Ron was sitting to her. “Did they say when the funeral would be, Harry?”

He was avoiding her eyes, the same way he’d always avoided her eyes when she’d hoped he might talk about Sirius. “Friday,” he said shortly.

“The day after Bill and Fleur’s wedding,” Ron added. He let out a short, humorless laugh. “Merlin, that’ll be a change of mood.”

They sat quietly for a moment. Then Harry glanced up at Hermione. “Are you—are you all right?” he said. “I mean, you saw it happen.”

“Yeah,” Ron added quickly. “If you want to talk about it, I mean …”

As Hermione looked at them both, warmth spread throughout her. Last night, she would have given anything to be able to speak with Harry and Ron, to be able to spill out some part of what had been roiling and twisting inside her. Now, though, she didn’t want any more than this. She was happy just to sit there with them, knowing that they would worry in her absence, and embrace her on her return, and make their awkward gestures toward intimate conversation, and look at her this way, waiting for her to find words. Maybe in time she would be able to speak. For now the offer was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com/) :)


	4. Breakthrough at the Burrow

Life at the Burrow was driving Draco mad. He didn’t know how much more he could take. Along with Potter, Weasley, and Granger, he had four additional Weasleys to put up with. The parents always looked harassed, and Bill’s scarred face made Draco’s stomach lurch, and Ginny kept shooting looks of such longing after Potter that it made Draco feel nauseated. Then, on top of all that, was Fleur Delacour, who glided around delivering a never-ending monologue about _ze wedding_ and treating them all like servants. At one point she actually told Draco to help with the streamers. As if he were a House Elf. He just looked at her, appalled, until his mother gripped him by the upper arm and steered him out of the kitchen.

Mostly, Draco and his parents spent their time at the foot of the gnome-infested, weed-ridden garden, as far away as they could get from the others. There was some satisfaction in this. Draco enjoyed sitting in the shade of a tree as Potter and Weasley shot filthy looks at him, pouring sweat, arranging white chairs under the beating sun.

Meals, though, had to be conducted outside, and for decorum’s sake, the Malfoys were obliged to sit at the same trestle table as everybody else. These hours were so spectacularly awkward that Draco felt almost delirious with discomfort. Arthur Weasley in particular seemed incapable of looking at any of the Malfoys, let alone speaking to them like a normal person. “Could someone please pass the potatoes,” Mr. Weasley would announce loudly to nobody, staring into the dusk, and when Lucius shoved them into his hand, Mr. Weasley would pretend the bowl had appeared there via some mysterious conjuration.

Draco had settled on a kind of silent non-aggression pact with Potter, Weasley, and Granger. Weasley still gave him angry and mistrustful looks whenever possible, but Potter seemed much more preoccupied by Lucius’s presence than Draco’s. This puzzled Draco at first, until he remembered that his father had fought all three of them, and Ginny, at the Department of Mysteries.

As for Granger, Draco had been suspicious at first that she might act differently toward him after their argument at her house. He found himself thinking about the possibility that she might corner him and try to make him speak about Dolohov, or about his father; he spent time thinking up responses to increasingly invasive questions that he imagined she would ask.

This was time wasted. She never approached him. Actually, of all the people in the Burrow, she was behaving the most tolerably toward him: she was brisk but polite, with no long, searching looks that suggested she was just waiting for him to press his Dark Mark and summon the Death Eaters. This was something all of the Weasleys, Potter, and occasionally even Fleur did.

All in all, the atmosphere was less than terrific. Draco hoped he wouldn’t have to put up with it for too much longer, and two days after they arrived, his wish came true. Shortly after dinner, Mrs. Weasley beckoned him over.

“Yeah?” he said, unable to keep a sullen note from his voice. With the stern look on her face, he wondered what he’d done.

She took a deep breath. “Arthur’s discussed with the rest of the Order,” she said. “Kingsley Shacklebolt has agreed to help transport your family out of the country. We’ll start making preparations after the wedding.”

“Why not now?” Draco asked.

She let out an exasperated sigh. “You may have noticed we’re a bit busy here at the moment. And things at the Ministry have deteriorated very quickly since … since Dumbledore …” Mrs. Weasley’s voice quavered, and she shook her head, blinking rapidly. “We think multiple members of the Ministry have gone over, and with that being the case, you’re lucky Hermione was able to get you here so quickly. The Floo network is being heavily monitored already, and they’ve put up a blanket Trace on the use of Portkeys. And obviously international Apparition is—”

“—impossible, yeah, I know.” Draco paused. “Where are you sending us?”

“We don’t know yet. Your family’s well-known even abroad, which makes it difficult to find a place you can live as yourselves, very difficult indeed. But Kingsley will sort it all, I’m sure.”

She was scrutinizing his expression. Draco didn’t like the look on her face, which was verging on pity. He liked even less the visions that were swimming through his head of himself and his parents alone on a desert island, gnawing rats off kebab sticks.

“Don’t worry,” she said. To his alarm, she made a strange move with her hand as if to touch his shoulder. Luckily, she stopped herself. “Like I say, Kingsley will sort it all.”

“He’d better,” Draco muttered. “Dumbledore promised to help us. So much for his impenetrable protection.”

But Mrs. Weasley clearly wasn’t listening. Her eyes had narrowed in on a point over his shoulder. Draco glanced back and saw Potter, Granger, and Weasley talking together outside a kitchen window, washed in the red light of sunset.

“You tell your parents, dear,” said Mrs. Weasley distractedly. Without waiting for an answer, she strode outside, and he watched her breaking up the trio, sending Granger fleeing to the bottom of the garden. Moments later, Potter and Weasley trudged inside and past Draco, heading upstairs. Draco caught a hint of mutinous conversation:

“—never get a chance to …”

Draco felt a tug of curiosity. It wasn’t like he _wanted_ to spend time speculating about whatever sordid secrets Potter, Weasley, and Granger were keeping from the rest of the world, but there was nothing else for him to do in this godforsaken place. Also, in the 48 hours since he’d arrived here, the three of them had been acting all too obviously fishy. They were trying to talk about _something,_ and Weasley’s mother had been keeping them from doing it—but what?

Draco hesitated, then crept up the stairs after Potter and Weasley. He realized almost immediately that sneaking around in this house would require extra precautions. Each floorboard creaked as if it were about to snap in two.

He tugged out his wand, aimed it at his own feet, and whispered, “ _Silencio._ ” Soon he was creeping up the stairs without a sound.

The stairs branched off into rickety little hallways that divided into small, cramped bedrooms, but Draco thought he could hear Potter and Weasley’s voices further up. He kept climbing and finally paused at the top of the steps, at a juncture between a water closet and a closed door. Leaning close to the door, he heard Weasley’s lowered voice.

“… back to Hogwarts. She’s just trying to make you feel guilty, mate.”

“Yeah, well, it’s working,” said Potter darkly. “If _you_ get caught, then it puts them all in danger, doesn’t it? And Ginny’s going to be at Hogwarts, right under Snape’s nose.”

“Yeah.” Weasley sounded grim. “Easy answer, then, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“We can’t get caught.”

Loud footsteps echoed further down the stairwell.

“Oh, blimey, it’s her,” Weasley said. Before Draco could do anything more than leap a step back from the door, Weasley was pulling it open, revealing a messy room plastered in Chudley Cannons memorabilia.

“You!” Weasley snarled. He and Potter were both on their feet in an instant.

“What did you hear, Malfoy?” said Potter.

“I’m looking for a bathroom,” Draco said coldly. “You think I care what you and Weasley talk about during your slumber parties?” And he walked into the W.C., closing the door behind him.

But the snippet of conversation had spun the wheels in his mind. _Ginny’s going to be at Hogwarts,_ Potter had said. So, he and Weasley weren’t going back to school, then. And presumably that included Granger, too.

Draco supposed he should have guessed. Hogwarts was no longer under Dumbledore’s protection. Potter would have had to be a real idiot to go back for his seventh year, essentially inviting the Dark Lord into a place that housed all his friends—and if Potter was going on the run, no doubt Weasley and Granger would trail after him the way they always did.

Still, though … why would Weasley’s mother be angry about that? Surely Potter, Weasley, and Granger would be shuttled from Order safehouse to Order safehouse? Surely _the Chosen One_ would be given the utmost protection? No, something about it still wasn’t quite right.

Draco was jarred out of his thoughts by Mrs. Weasley’s voice. “ _Ronald Weasley!_ Haven’t I told you a thousand times to clean out the shed? The Delacours are arriving in _less than a day,_ and if they see it in that state—”

“Mum,” Ron’s voice groaned, “please, tell me why the Delacours would give a damn what the shed—”

“ _You-get-down-there-right-now!”_ thundered Mrs. Weasley.

Draco looked blankly at the door. Mrs. Weasley’s constant outbursts were yet another bewildering part of life at the Burrow. His mother would have died before showing her anger like that. Draco remembered being eight years old and shattering a sheet of china with enchanted glaze—a family heirloom, Chinoiserie, very rare. His mother hadn’t yelled. Actually, she hadn’t made a sound. She’d gone very pale, and had looked at him in a way that knifed through him, and hadn’t spoken to him for a week. She’d never mentioned the incident again. Neither had Draco, but something still squirmed shamefully in him when he thought of it.

He heard Ron stomping down the steps, and Potter said something, sounding meek and apologetic.

“Yes, thank you, Harry dear, that would be a great help,” Mrs. Weasley replied, though she still sounded snappish. Two more sets of descending footsteps later, the top of the Burrow was silent.

Draco snuck out of the W.C., glanced down the stairs to make sure there was no one there, and slipped into Ron’s room. He shut the door behind himself and muttered, “Colloportus.” The locked door would give him an extra second or two of warning.

He scanned the room, not knowing what he was looking for. Even if he _had_ known what he was looking for, the room was such a bombsite that a cursory scan would have done nothing. The bedroom was minuscule, and every single surface was layered in clothes, books, or soaring Chudley Cannons players.

Then Draco spotted a rucksack beside the camp bed. It didn’t look wizard-made, which meant it had to belong to Potter. Draco crouched beside it, extracted it from a pile of shirts, and started rifling through it.

At first the contents seemed normal enough for a rucksack—changes of clothes, a potion-making kit, an old photo album—but when he reached the front pocket, he slowed down. There was a shard of mirror, on which he nearly sliced a finger; he placed this gingerly on the camp bed. Beneath that was a carefully folded piece of aged parchment. Draco could tell from its delicate texture that it was decades old, but when he spread it flat on the camp bed, it was blank.

“Aparecium,” he muttered, tapping it with his wand.

Nothing happened. He narrowed his eyes at it, certain there was something there, hiding just out of sight. A clue to what the Gryffindors were thinking? A long and detailed list of their plans?

He would come back to the parchment. He reached right down into the rucksack’s front pocket—and his hand met cold metal. He drew out a glimmering golden locket.

Draco lifted it up to examine it. It was slightly tarnished. He sprung its catch, and his heart beat faster as a scrap of parchment fell out into his palm.

_To the Dark Lord:_

_I know I will be dead long before you read this, but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret._

_I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more._

_R.A.B._

Draco stared at the parchment. His heart had stopped beating so quickly. In fact, it didn’t seem to be beating at all, anymore.

 _Horcrux._ He’d never heard the word before in his life, but the rest of the note gave him a good idea of what it might be. _Mortal once more …_ whatever this _Horcrux_ had been was something that gave the Dark Lord some power over death. An Elixir of Life, maybe? Draco had heard of derivatives of the Philosopher’s Stone, which were not so powerful or effective as the real Stone, but which could prolong life past its intended boundaries.

And Potter had this locket. Potter had some information about the Dark Lord’s secrets, about how to reduce him back to a mortal man.

Whatever Potter, Granger, and Weasley were planning had to be something to do with this. Of course Mrs. Weasley would be terrified of the idea of her son getting directly involved in the Dark Lord’s mortality—but that begged another question. Why in Merlin’s name were _Potter, Granger, and Weasley_ doing this, rather than the senior members of the Order of the Phoenix? Draco had known that Potter had a bond with Dumbledore, but he would never have guessed that Dumbledore would entrust him with this sort of information. It seemed insane, ridiculous, to put this into Potter’s hands. Surely there was no way they’d stumbled across this themselves.

Draco only realized how long he’d been sitting there, immobile, staring at the note, when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. He dropped the note and the locket and began shoving Potter’s possessions back into the rucksack, but before he could get the note inside the locket, he heard Hermione Granger’s impatient voice say, “Alohomora,” and the door flew open.

“Ron, I really—”

She broke off, staring openmouthed at Draco. Her eyes traveled slowly down to the locket and the note in his hands, and her eyes grew very round.

She moved so quickly that he nearly didn’t have time to block. “ _Obliviate!_ ” she cried.

“ _Protego_ ,” he snarled, and she whirled out of the way as her own spell rebounded into the door, leaving a line of splinters peeling away from the old wood. She was flustered now, and he beat her to the next spell by a millisecond:

“ _Expelliarmus,_ ” both their voices yelled in near unison, but Draco lunged forward onto the camp bed, out of the way, and Granger, walled in by Ron’s bed, had nowhere to dodge. The spell hit her, and her wand spun out of her hand and into Draco’s.

“Nice try, Granger,” Draco panted, rising to his feet. He shut the bedroom door hard, then advanced on her. “What is this? Tell me.” He held up the locket.

Her look of panic increased, her eyes darting from the locket to the note. “I … it’s …” She took half a step back so that her back was against the wall.

“ _Tell me_ ,” he repeated.

“Nothing! It’s nothing! It’s just …”

Then her eyes darted somewhere else. The day was sweltering, and Draco had pushed his light summer robes up to his elbows. He’d cast a glamour over his forearm, but at certain angles, you could still see it: the red snake and skull, like a brand, ready at any moment to burn black.

Granger’s eyes flicked back up to his, and Draco felt a shock of disorientation as he recognized the look on her face. In that moment, she was terrified of him.

The idea didn’t immediately make sense. This was the girl who had cursed Marietta Edgecombe with near-permanent disfigurement, the girl who had slapped him in the face when they were thirteen, the girl who—when Umbridge had had them all captive at the end of fifth year—had managed to worm her way into freedom. Granger wasn’t a fearful person. Yet now she was staring at Draco as if she really, truly expected him to hurt her.

He moved backward from her so quickly that he nearly tripped on the camp bed. When he regained his footing, they were both breathing hard.

Some of the fear had left Granger’s face, replaced by confusion.

Draco shoved both of their wands into his pocket, his sense of disorientation growing. The power to induce fear was a Death Eater’s first, simplest weapon. Even when Draco was young, his father had occasionally described that kind of power to him with cool satisfaction. _There are more effective methods of persuasion than gold,_ he’d said, _though in this day and age it’s not appropriate to use them, Draco._

From the way his father had spoken of power like that—and from the way the Dark Lord always enjoyed his followers’ terror—Draco had thought it must feel thrilling to be able to frighten people, to command their fear. But that, just now—it hadn’t thrilled him at all. It felt like panic, like accusation. Her look of fear told him what she thought of him, what she thought he was capable of.

He spoke to stop his thoughts from overwhelming him. “W-well?” he said, trying for some composure. “What is this note? What is a Horcrux?”

Granger blanched. “Keep your voice down,” she whispered, glancing at the door.

“Why?”

“Mrs. Weasley is up and down these stairs all day. She could hear you.”

That took him aback. “You mean she doesn’t know about this?”

Slight desperation returned to Granger’s face. “No one does. It’s just Harry, Ron, and me, so you can’t tell anyone, do you understand? You mustn’t. It’s more important than you can possibly know.”

Draco lowered the locket, narrowing his eyes at her. “Explain it to me, then.”

Granger hesitated. Reluctance was written all over her face.

“Granger,” Draco said, “you realize you have nothing to bargain with here.”

“Yes, yes, fine.” She sighed, shook her head, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “A Horcrux is a piece of a human soul encased in an object. While that object remains safe, that person cannot die.”

Draco examined the locket, digesting the information. The pieces were slowly clicking into place in his mind. “So, this …”

But there was more squeaking from the stairs, and soon enough Potter and Weasley were shouldering through the door.

Draco was ready for them. “ _Expelliarmus_.” With a sweep of his wand, both of their wands flew from their pockets and into his hand.

“Oi!” said Weasley, grabbing for his wand as it flew away from him.

“What are you playing at, Malfoy?” Potter said. “Give—”

Then the color drained from his face. He took a step back into Weasley, who had frozen. He’d seen the locket, too.

“He was going through your things when I got up here,” said Granger hopelessly. “I … I tried to modify his memory, but I don’t think even that would be enough. Voldemort can break those charms.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Draco said, “so don’t even think about—”

“The memory modification would be for _your_ safety, not ours,” Granger said impatiently. “You have no idea what you’ve stumbled into.”

Weasley shut the door. “What should we do?” he muttered to Potter.

“How much have you told him?” Potter asked Granger.

“Not very much,” she said. “I told him _what_ they are, that’s all.”

“Maybe that’s all right, then,” Weasley said slowly. “He’s supposed to go abroad anyway, right? If we just let him disappear …”

“Oh, Ron, do you really think he won’t tell his parents the instant he gets a chance?”

Draco looked up to heaven. It was like he wasn’t even in the room. “Excuse me,” he said, “can we get back to the _point_ , please?” He held up the locket. “Potter, Granger, Weasley, I don’t care which of you does it, _tell me what this is._ ”

“I told you,” Granger said. “I already told you what a Horcrux is.”

“But this isn’t a Horcrux.”

“Yes, because someone got to it first,” she said with exaggerated patience. “We don’t know who, but someone was clearly working against Voldemort, and wanted to destroy the Horcrux, so they took the real one and replaced it with this decoy.”

Draco looked between them, wondering if this was a joke. “You … don’t know who?”

“Blimey,” said Weasley to Potter with mock sadness, “six years of Hogwarts education and he can’t even read.” He looked at Draco, dripping dislike. “What, do you think the letters R.A.B. are someone’s full name?”

This was too good. Draco closed the note back into the locket and laughed. “You really _don’t_ know, do you?”

They all looked at him for a long moment.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Potter said.

“What do you think it means, Potter? I know who wrote the note.”

Weasley and Potter traded incredulous looks.

“Come off it,” Weasley scoffed, though he sounded slightly uncertain.

But Granger was looking at Draco, her eyes piercing. “I think he’s serious,” she said quietly.

It was infuriating, Draco decided, to be spoken about as if every tiny thing he said needed verification. But it was worth it to see the frustration on Potter and Weasley’s faces as their eyes traveled from the locket to Draco’s face and back.

“Who?” Potter ground out. The single syllable seemed to take great effort.

“Well, well,” Draco said, enjoying himself now. “If that’s the tone you’re going to take …”

“Just tell us,” Weasley snapped. “You don’t know what this could mean.”

“That’s what _she_ keeps saying,” Draco said, letting his eyes slide onto Granger. “ _You don’t know what this could mean, you have no idea what you’ve stumbled into, you don’t know how important this is_. Here’s an idea. Why don’t you tell me what you’re talking about, and then I’ll know why, exactly, I should care?”

“I already told you it’s for your own safety,” Granger said hotly. “I thought that was the only thing you cared about.”

Draco considered for a moment. “Fine, then,” he said with a shrug, dropping the locket back onto the camp bed. “I suppose I _will_ ask my parents about it. Maybe we can figure it out together. Maybe we can enlist your parents, too, Weasley.”

“No,” Weasley said, moving in front of the door. He looked from Potter to Granger, shaking his head. “I think we’ll have to tell him.”

“Yes. Tell him,” Draco said. “I’m waiting.”

Granger and Weasley both glanced to Potter, ceding the conversation to him in that uncanny soundless way they had.

“Fine,” said Potter, though he looked furious. “We … we’re tracking down the real Horcrux this year. We’re not going back to Hogwarts. We’re going to find it and make sure it’s destroyed, so that Voldemort—well, like the note says. So that he’s mortal again.”

Draco hesitated. He had the sense Potter wasn’t telling him everything, but maybe that was just because Potter looked like he was about to punch something.

“All right,” Draco said slowly. “So, why _you_ three? Why not someone with, I don’t know, any qualifications at all?”

“Dumbledore left the job to Harry because of the Prophecy,” said Granger. “And we can’t tell anyone else. The more people know, the riskier it is, because if Voldemort finds out his secret’s been compromised, then he can take more steps to protect th—protect it.”

Draco caught her mistake. “Protect them,” he repeated. “There’s more than one, then, is there?”

Potter threw an exasperated glance at Hermione, who returned a look of apology.

“Yeah,” Potter said roughly. “There’s more than one. That all you wanted to know? Can you tell us who R.A.B. is, now?”

Draco paused, wondering whether to push the point, but Potter and Weasley both looked near violence, so he said, “Would’ve thought _you’d_ know, Potter. He was your godfather’s brother, wasn’t he?”

As much as he hated the sight of the three of them, Draco had to admit there was something satisfying about watching their expressions transform, lifting out of dislike and frustration into excitement and comprehension.

“ _Regulus,_ ” Potter breathed. “Regulus Arcturus—”

“All that summer before fifth year we were in there,” Weasley said, slapping himself on the forehead, “and we didn’t remember—”

“Why didn’t Dumbledore think of him?” said Granger.

“Sirius hated talking about his brother,” Potter said. “He only told me about him once, and he changed the subject pretty quickly, too. He wouldn’t have wanted to tell Dumbledore about his dead Death Eater brother, not while he was living in that house.” He paused. “Besides, Regulus was only a Death Eater for a year or two before he died. Sirius probably wouldn’t have thought it was worth mentioning.”

Draco remembered the clippings about Death Eater activity he’d seen in Regulus’s room while he’d been sleeping there. He remembered the photographs of the slight Slytherin boy, a Seeker like him, excited by the idea of joining the Dark Lord, a cause of Wizarding pride. And if the clippings suggested the group was too violent, that was only because the writers didn’t understand the importance of the cause.

“He did join the Death Eaters, then?” Draco found himself asking.

All three Gryffindors looked at him as if they’d forgotten he was there.

“Yeah,” Potter said. “Before he left Hogwarts.”

Something sat in Draco’s chest that felt both heavy and empty. “And he—he turned against the Dark Lord to destroy this Horcrux?”

“That’s what the note says, isn’t it?” said Weasley.

“How do you know he’s dead?” Draco said.

They all hesitated. Then Potter said, “Well, he disappeared.”

“Then they didn’t find a body. He could still be alive.”

Draco didn’t like the way they were all looking at him, suddenly: Weasley and Potter with slight awkwardness, Granger with the look she’d worn that night at her house—the look that suggested she was understanding too much.

“He’s dead, Malfoy,” Granger said quietly. “If he were alive and just in hiding, he would have come back when Voldemort lost his body.”

She was right, of course, but Draco hated her for saying it. For one brief second, he thought he’d learned of a Death Eater—a Death Eater his age, no less—who’d managed to escape.

 _But then, Regulus Black accepted his death_ , Draco thought. The note said it all. Black had gone after the Dark Lord’s Horcrux, he’d brought it on himself. If he’d just been smarter, maybe he would have survived.

“Do you think the locket is still in Grimmauld Place?” said Granger, sitting back down on the bed.

“Malfoy, you lived there,” said Weasley. “What d’you reckon?”

Draco looked resentfully at Weasley, but could think of no real reason not to answer. “No,” he said. “I lived in his room when I was there, I didn’t leave that house for four weeks, and I had nothing better to do than look around every inch of the place. There wasn’t a locket anywhere.”

“Regulus could have stowed it wherever he wanted,” Potter muttered. “There was no reason for him to leave it in the house.”

“Yeah, there was,” said Weasley. “His house was full of Dark stuff, wasn’t it? It would’ve been the perfect hiding place. If I were him, I would have mixed it in with all that junk we took out before fifth year.”

“That’s a good point,” Granger said. “It would have fit perfectly with … with …”

She trailed off. Her eyes had gone round again—not with fear this time but with epiphany. “There was a locket,” she whispered.

“What?” said Potter.

“In the cabinet in the drawing room. A heavy golden locket that no one could open … do you remember? We all passed it around.”

Now Weasley and Potter were looking dumbstruck, too.

“But then—” Potter rounded on Draco, who flinched back. “Malfoy. You said it’s not there now.”

“No,” Draco said, unsure how he felt about being roped into this. All the same, it was hard to stop watching the three of them try to solve their mystery, for some reason.

“Hang on, though,” Weasley said. “Kreacher nicked a load of stuff that summer! Malfoy, you’re sure the locket wasn’t in that room in the back of the kitchen? Near the boiler? He’s got a foul sort of nest.”

“Ron,” Granger said reproachfully.

“Oh, _that’s_ what that was,” Draco said with disgust. “No, there was only an old book in there.”

“We have to ask him, though,” said Potter, his eyes alight. “Maybe he saw it at some point, or maybe he knows which load of things it got thrown out with.” He looked around, as if expecting the elf to spring out from behind a Chudley Cannons poster. “Krea—!”

“ _No!_ ” Draco and Granger yelled at the same time. Granger actually lunged out and fastened her hand around Potter’s wrist.

“What?” Potter said, startled. “What is it?”

“ _Death Eaters got into Grimmauld Place,_ Potter!” Draco said, his body actually feeling cold from the closeness of the near miss. “If you think they haven’t put a magical trace on that elf by now, you’re as mad as he is.”

“I’m sure they’ll be watching him all the time, Harry,” Granger said, letting go his wrist. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can ask Kreacher anything.”

“Then—then what do we do?” said Potter furiously. “Search every rubbish dump in London?”

There was a full minute of silence. Weasley’s face was screwed up in concentration, and Granger had closed her eyes, her lips moving slightly. After a long moment, Draco realized he was actually, seriously trying to think of an answer to Potter’s dilemma, too. He tried to pull himself out of it—getting involved with Horcruxes had killed Regulus Black, for Merlin’s sake—but the suggestion was out of him before he could stop himself: “There’s the Scavenger’s Guild.”

“The what?” said Granger and Potter at the same time. Both were looking at him with slight surprise.

“The Scavenger’s Guild,” said Weasley. He sounded wary, begrudging, but there was excitement in his eyes. “That’s an idea, actually.”

Potter and Granger were still looking nonplussed, so Weasley went on. “Sometimes Muggles pick up magical objects and don’t realize what they are, because lots of Wizarding objects are spelled to look like rubbish if a Muggle comes into contact with them. Galleons and Sickles and Knuts are all like that—if you drop one and a Muggle picks it up, it’ll look like an old Muggle cent, won’t it?”

“Will it?” said Potter, looking startled.

“Well, yeah,” Weasley said. “So, anyway, Muggles wind up chucking lots of magical stuff in the bin, and it ends up in landfills. The Scavengers go through, rescue anything magical, polish it up a bit, and resell anything good. They’ve got a stall in Diagon Alley, shows up about once a month. Fred and George told me last year they got a good bit of Lightweight Lead off them.”

“All right,” said Potter with rising excitement. “All right, then. We’ll try that.” He turned to Draco, opened his mouth, and made no sound whatsoever.

Draco knew Potter had been about to thank him instinctively for the suggestion, but Potter clearly couldn’t make himself form the words.

“Well,” Draco said stiffly. “Enjoy your search.”

When he was halfway out the door, Granger said, “Malfoy.”

He turned back.

“You … you _aren’t_ going to tell anyone, are you?” she asked tentatively.

He surveyed her anxious expression. The girl sounded so frightened half the time. It was like she was expecting him to bite her nose off for asking a simple question.

“Why would I?” he said.

“That’s not a real answer, Malfoy,” Potter said.

Draco sighed. “Yes, it is.” He rolled his eyes. “ _Gryffindors_. Ask one simple question about motive and you’re all completely lost.”

With that, he returned downstairs and traipsed into the yard. For sleeping room, Draco and his parents had been given a grubby tent that opened up into a miserable little apartment. The first time they’d entered it, his mother had been momentarily speechless with horror.

“Amazing,” Draco had said. “They found a place even less fit for human habitation than the hovel itself.” But neither of his parents even cracked a smile. Draco didn’t know why he bothered sometimes.

Draco had been teasing Ron Weasley about his house for so long that it felt stupid to be really _surprised_ by what the Burrow was like. Still, he couldn’t imagine growing up in a place like this, never having any privacy, everything used and used and used to shreds. It did, at least, make him appreciate the feeling of coming outside into the evening, when the sky opened up overhead, and he could breathe.

And it was true, too, he thought begrudgingly, that Mrs. Weasley’s cooking was delicious. He felt a bit traitorous for thinking it. Merlin knew his own mother couldn’t have done so much as boil a potato. Of course, she’d never had to, since she wasn’t a glorified House Elf.

When he entered the tent apartment, his parents were having a cup of tea at the spindly table in the main room. They greeted each other quietly, and then Draco, already tired, prepared for bed.

As he settled beneath the thin sheet, he missed home. He missed the manor’s many large and quiet rooms, its lush, sweet-smelling gardens, its fountains and tastefully decorated wings. He missed Hogwarts, too: the lush velvet and dark leather of the Slytherin Common Room, the library and its imposing shelves, the sweeping lawns. Now that they were halfway through the summer vacation, he was starting to feel the usual itch of wanting to return. He wondered if it would go away after September first.

As his eyes drooped shut, he wondered if his friends had adjusted to the idea of his death yet. Had Pansy cried over him? Surely she had; she cried often and vigorously. This would probably have ruined her summer. Normally she couldn’t shut up about the summer holidays, she loved them so much—the events the Parkinsons threw at their estate, the days spent sunning herself by their swimming pool, the luxurious trips to wizarding outposts near New York and Hong Kong. Her family were particularly close to the Goyles, so sometimes they went on joint trips, and Crabbe came along, too, and Pansy spent the holidays daring the duo into more and more outrageous escapades, and she’d lavishly recount their adventures on the Hogwarts Express back to school.

The memories were bright and clear for a while. Then they faded like old photographs, and Draco found himself thinking of a golden locket, and a Slytherin Seeker, looking uncertainly out of a picture frame, whose body had never been found.

* * *

By the day of the wedding, Hermione felt as if her skull were filled with a swarm of bees. She liked the Delacours very much—she certainly got along better with all three of Fleur’s family than with Fleur herself—but the Malfoys had already been three too many people to live at the Burrow, and the Delacours stretched the situation to breaking point.

Maybe she wouldn’t have felt so put-upon if she hadn’t been secretly packing all of her, Harry’s, and Ron’s belongings into her small beaded bag. She’d finally perfected the Undetectable Extension Charm the day before, and had lost several hours’ sleep feeding her own possessions into it, library of books, catalog of potion ingredients, and all.

The wedding ceremony itself was the first time Hermione had felt relaxed in days. Fleur’s radiance seemed to make the whole marquee unnaturally silent, and Hermione’s eyes stung as the couple exchanged their vows, and then, finally, kissed.

It was a sort of catharsis, she thought, as the band started up. Tomorrow, they would all travel to Hogwarts for Dumbledore’s funeral, but for now, they had music, and family, and friends. She even let herself have a conversation with Luna about Snorkack conservation efforts.

Every so often, she caught sight of Harry, in disguise as Barny Weasley, and the three Malfoys, who had Polyjuiced into a butcher’s family from the village. The Weasleys had quietly but industriously circulated the idea that the Malfoys were a trio of standoffish family friends, ones who had been living on a remote island off the coast of Iceland for several years and had lost the ability to socialize. So far, this had held up reasonably well, although Viktor had struck up a brief conversation with Lucius Malfoy about Icelandic sheep herding.

It felt strange to see Viktor again. Fourth year seemed impossibly long ago now; the return of Voldemort had separated it out into a previous life that she could never regain. Hermione could still feel wisps of what she’d felt for Viktor if she focused hard on drawing up the memory, like closing her eyes and trying to recreate an exact image on the backs of her eyelids. But she knew it was past.

When Ron asked her to dance, she didn’t think twice about Viktor. _This is it,_ she thought, as they whirled and twirled with the laughing crowd. _This is when I’ll understand what I feel. This is when it all comes clear._

Yet when a slow song began, and Ron moved close to hold her waist and take one of her hands in his, she was surprised to feel a leaden feeling in her stomach, rather than the excited, nervous flutters she’d felt during the start of the summer. A hard lump formed in her throat. Unable to look up at Ron, she laid her head on his chest instead, looking toward the edge of the tent, where Harry was having a seemingly intense conversation with Ron’s Aunt Muriel and Elphias Doge.

But she wasn’t thinking about Harry, either. She was thinking about Dumbledore’s funeral. About Dumbledore falling from the sky, drifting through clouds’ ragged edges. She was so afraid, and touching Ron like this, being close to him, was only exacerbating it. She didn’t want to lose him. She didn’t want to lose Harry.

In that moment, she worried that she was confusing the fear of loss for love. She worried that she could feel nothing at all _except_ the fear of loss, and that, until all this was over, that was the only emotion she would be allowed, in various states of volume and intensity.

Worse than this feeling was the feeling of Ron’s heart beating fast against her ear, and—when the song ended and they pulled away—the intensely tender look on his freckled face. From that expression, she knew that while they’d danced, he’d been feeling what she’d wanted to feel: a kind of rapture, of euphoria, the sedative feeling that everything was finally right in the world. But all she’d been able to register was the looming threat of death and attack. It made her feel impossibly alone to realize how far away they’d been from each other in those minutes, even as they’d held each other, and Ron must have realized, because he said, “Something wrong?”

“I’m just a bit thirsty,” she managed. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

It was too late, she thought as she stood on the outskirts of the marquee, folding her warm fingers around a cup of cold pumpkin juice. The idea of Ron taking her aside and kissing her no longer made her feel a thrill, only a new kind of anxiety. Those first golden weeks of July had been their chance, and the chance had passed by. The window had slipped shut.

She couldn’t tell whether Dumbledore’s death had changed things or clarified them. Maybe his death had shaken her so badly that she could no longer feel excitement about romantic possibilities. Or maybe his death had stripped away the complications, all the guilt and history, and made her realize that what she felt for Ron and Harry alike was the desperate, elemental need for them to stay alive.

Either way, she felt what she felt now, and she didn’t think she could go back. She settled into a seat without paying attention.

“Granger,” said an unfamiliar voice.

She looked up to see the Polyjuiced Malfoy at the same table. He was a burly boy with black hair around their age, slightly shorter than Malfoy but nearly twice as broad in the shoulder.

“Oh. Hi,” she said faintly. “Pumpkin juice?”

“Can’t,” he said sourly. “I’m supposed to stick with this. Another dose in a few minutes.” He raised an opaque flagon that held his Polyjuice. He was slouched in the chair, legs stretched out, eyeing the dance floor with evident disinterest.

“I expect you’ll be glad to leave when this is over,” said Hermione, unable to conceal a note of disapproval. She thought the Weasleys, and every Order member, really, had been remarkably accommodating of the Malfoys, all things considered.

“Glad?” said Malfoy, with such disdain that it still somehow sounded precisely like him, even in another boy’s voice. “Oh, absolutely. I’ll be thrilled to leave behind every last speck of my life.”

“You make it sound as if you’re being forced.”

“Do I have a choice?”

She sighed. “Obviously you have a—”

She broke off abruptly. Something silvery had appeared in the center of the dance floor. A messenger Patronus, a lynx, had settled to the ground, and it spoke with the voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt:

_“The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.”_

Then there was screaming, and then—suddenly—the _crack, crack, crack_ of multiple Apparitions.

Before Hermione had even fully understood what was happening, spells were flying. A jet of white light flew toward their table. Hermione had barely registered it before something was slamming hard into her side, sending her flying out of her chair. Then—

 _Bang_.

She looked up, gasping. Their table was smoking and splintered. Malfoy was sprawled beside her. He’d knocked them both out of the impact radius, and now he was scrambling to his feet, wand in hand. Hermione followed, looking around wildly for Harry and Ron. She saw them almost immediately, already stumbling toward her out of the dust. And there—behind them—the cloaked figures who had Apparated in. They were wearing masks, immobilizing everyone they could see. Death Eaters, here, under the wedding marquee.

Malfoy staggered back, his face full of fear. And Hermione, her eyes fixed on his dark curly hair, saw it start to change, to turn white-blond.

She sprinted the few steps to his side, seized him by the arm, and grabbed Ron’s elbow with her other hand. “Hold on, Harry,” she yelled, allowing him a second to seize Ron’s arm before she turned on the spot.

They squeezed into the dark space between places. Then they were bursting out onto a wild mountain path that overlooked Hogsmeade Village.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com) :)


	5. At the Hogwarts Gate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello sweet pals! Thank you so much for following along and for yr feedback, I love it and you. With this chapter, let’s get hunting for some things!! I hope you enjoy :)

Draco was bleeding. He could feel the bead of blood, hot and wet, working its way down from his temple. A chair had clipped his forehead as he’d dived to the ground at the Burrow.

He took an uncertain step, blinking in the harsh sunlight, trying to compose himself.

Around him, the Gryffindors were getting their bearings, too. Weasley was twisting his golden watch around his wrist over and over, the only thing he wore that looked remotely new. Potter, still disguised as the Weasley cousin, was wiping the smears from his glasses; his hands were steady, but his whole body was rigid. Granger was looking down into Hogsmeade Village, breathing shallowly, her hair moving gently in the mountain wind.

Draco saw them as if through glass. His mind was fixed on his parents, still in disguise as Muggles, standing beneath the marquee. He’d caught a single glimpse of them, both looking around for him with terror on their faces …

That was before _she_ had seized his arm.

“Granger,” he said. His voice was hard and cold, shaking slightly. “What is this? Are you Confunded? My parents are back there. Why did you bring me here?”

Granger’s eyes flashed. “Why do you _think_ I did it? Just look at yourself.”

He glanced down and received a shock. His robes were several inches too short, and his hands were back to normal, no longer stubby workman’s hands but long and pale, still twitching with adrenalin.

He hadn’t even realized he’d returned to his own body. Suddenly the terror on his parents’ face seemed to mean something very different. In the panic, had he somehow missed the feeling of transformation? How long, exactly, had he been himself?

There had been Death Eaters in that tent. As he thought of them, his stomach squeezed so violently that he felt sick. “Did anyone see me?” he choked out. “Did the—the Death Eaters—”

“No,” Granger said. “Your hair had only just started to change when we left.”

Draco narrowed his eyes, studying her. Though obviously still irritated that he’d snapped at her, she looked certain. “All right,” he said. He moved one palm up his forehead, wiping the streak of blood and pushing back his hair, which had become thin and smooth again. “Fine, then. I’ll … I’ll disguise myself and we’ll go back.”

“Go— _what?_ ” Granger said.

“Yeah,” said another voice. Potter had turned to them both. Behind his freckles, his skin was white. “As fast as we can.”

Now panic had appeared on Granger’s face. “Harry, _no_. You can’t go back, it’ll put them in so much more danger. You have to stay.” She looked back to Draco. “Both of you.”

“I just said, my parents are still there,” Draco said, his voice rising again. “Did you somehow not notice the Death Eaters? They could have—they could already—” He lost his voice in the images. His parents tortured on the parquet floors like that Muggle man. His mother bound, his father cut apart. He forced his mouth shut, but the others didn’t notice. Potter was talking now:

“Ginny’s there, Hermione. Ginny’s there, and—and everyone, and we’re supposed to leave her with a bunch of—?”

“Hermione’s right,” Weasley interrupted.

Potter stared at Weasley, looking slightly betrayed. “Ron—”

“I know, mate. I know. But most of the Order was there, they’ll look after everyone.”

“Oh, yeah?” Draco said. “And what about my family? The Order don’t care about them, none of you care. They’ll get handed over in a second if I—”

“ _We don’t care?_ ” Granger said, her hair seeming to fluff out in fury. “Right, of course. That must be why Remus and Tonks refused to help save your mother, and why Dedalus and Hestia refused to break your father out of Azkaban, and why I let you three get caught at Grimmauld Place, and why the Weasleys all refused to harbor you at their house, and why Kingsley refused to help smuggle you out of the country. All of that must be because _we_ _don’t care_.”

The words made Draco hesitate. Obviously he knew all these things already, but all week he’d been focusing on the Order’s begrudging looks, on the hostile atmosphere at the Burrow, on the judgment he was sure was directed their way. Granger was right, though. Maybe the Order _were_ criticizing him and his family out of sight. Maybe they even hated them. But they’d kept them alive.

In the slight ebb of his panic, Draco remembered that his parents had drunk another dose of Polyjuice only minutes before the attack. He remembered his father commenting on the disgusting taste and his mother agreeing. They had at least another hour, then, even if they hadn’t managed to leave. Or maybe someone had Apparated them out, the way …

He shot a furtive look at Granger, who was now rummaging in a small beaded bag. _The way she did,_ he thought warily. In the split instant of the Death Eaters’ appearance, she’d seen he was in danger of exposure and whisked him off to safety, the same way she’d done for Weasley and Potter.

Then again, hadn’t he seen a spell hissing toward their table and knocked _her_ out of the way? And he hadn’t made a real choice to do that, or anything. It was just instinct. Instinct meant nothing, it was your body dragging your mind along, it was the realm of Gryffindors. What you chose to do when you had all the time in the world—that was who you really were.

“All right,” said Potter, finally. “We’ll … yeah, we’ll stay here, then.”

Granger and Weasley both glanced to Draco. They were waiting, he realized, for his agreement. Caught off-guard, he nodded.

Draco glanced at Potter at the same time that Potter looked his way. Potter’s lips were downturned, and Draco returned a scowl before looking away. He couldn’t remember ever feeling on the same page as Potter. Maybe in first year, when they’d been sent into the Forest with Granger and Longbottom. They’d all been terrified then.

He wasn’t sure that counted, though. They’d been so young. Draco didn’t think he was anything like his 11-year-old self anymore. Sometimes he thought of his first few years at Hogwarts with a kind of wistful embarrassment that didn’t entirely make sense to him. He’d been naïve about nearly everything, but then, he’d been a child. Children were supposed to be naïve.

Weasley was looking down at Hogsmeade now. “Why _are_ we here?” he asked with a frown.

“Please,” Draco muttered, “tell me you’re not still thinking about going to Dumbledore’s funeral.”

“No,” Granger said quietly. “No, I don’t think we can. Not when Scrimgeour …”

The weight of the Ministry’s collapse settled over all of them, and the wind seemed to increase in volume. If the Death Eaters’ grip had been strong before, it was about to become a stranglehold. Even with Shacklebolt’s help, Draco wondered if he and his parents would be able to get out of the country at all, now. Magic would have to be kept to a minimum. They would have to slink away like Muggles. The idea made him feel an ugly, creeping sense of shame.

“Then why here?” Weasley repeated.

“Well, I thought we might be able to … to fetch the …” Granger cast a furtive glance at Draco.

Draco let out a sigh. “Would you like me to stick my fingers in my ears and say ‘la la la’?”

“Yeah, thanks,” said Weasley.

Granger shook her head. “Oh, it doesn’t matter, he knows enough already. The sword, Malfoy. We need it.”

“What, Gryffindor’s sword?” Draco said.

Granger nodded. “It can destroy Horcruxes. It’s been impregnated with Basilisk venom, which is one of the very few substances that—”

“How are we supposed to get it, though?” Weasley broke in. “Are we supposed to just stroll up to the front door?”

Potter suddenly let out a frustrated groan. “The Cloak,” he said. “Merlin, I had it on me all of last year, and the _second_ we need it—”

“I have it here,” Granger said, and to Draco’s astonishment, she reached into her beaded bag, which was hardly larger than her fist, and pulled out a long, fluid stream of Cloak—the same Cloak, he realized, that McGonagall had handed him the night of the Death Eaters’ invasion.

None of the boys said anything for a moment, all staring at Granger. “Undetectable Extension Charm,” she said, sounding slightly defensive.

Weasley shook his head. “You’re a genius, you are,” he said, with open admiration and something slightly dreamy that made Draco’s lip curl.

“Thank you, Ron,” Granger said. Her cheeks were tinged pink, but she didn’t look at him. “Anyway, it won’t fit the four of us, but—”

“The _four_ of us?” The sappy look disappeared from Weasley’s face. “Hang on. We’re not bringing _him_ along, are we?” He jerked his head at Draco, who bristled.

“Yeah, you damn well are,” Draco said coldly. “If something goes wrong with your little plan, and you three disappear, what exactly am I supposed to do? Dance into the Three Broomsticks and ask for a gillywater? You’re getting me back to my parents.”

“Let’s go,” said Potter. He didn’t seem to have heard the last minute of conversation. He was already walking quickly down the trail, his eyes fixed on Hogwarts. The castle sat high and proud across the lake, its weathered stones glowing in the late afternoon.

“Ron, you wear this,” Granger said, pressing the Cloak into his hands as they all followed Potter. “You shouldn’t be seen, now that you’re supposedly sick at home. Harry can get under it, too, when his Polyjuice wears off. And—” She turned back to Draco, who flinched as she rapped him on the head with her wand. He experienced the cold sensation of Disillusionment. “That should do,” she said, looking him up and down. “I know the grounds are open to visitors from the village in summertime, and we can borrow a few brooms from Madam Hooch’s shed and fly them up to a window to get in.”

As they walked down to the turnstile at the end of the mountain path, though, and entered Hogsmeade, a large wrinkle appeared in the plan. The village was busier than Draco had ever seen it, busier even than the first visiting weekend of every year. Throngs of people were moving from shop to shop, packed so tightly together that the four of them had to squeeze by against walls. More than once, Granger and Potter received odd looks from someone who had bumped into Draco or into Ron under the Cloak.

The crowd thinned as they approached the road that led to Hogwarts, but several people seemed to be heading that way, too. “What’s going on?” Draco heard the invisible patch of air beside Granger mutter to her. “Why’s it like this?”

“They must all be here for the funeral,” she said, trying and failing not to move her lips. She looked like a bad ventriloquist. “But once we’re on the grounds, there should be room to lose … to …”

Draco came to a halt as Granger and the others did the same. They were now scarcely ten feet from the pillars that flanked the entrance to the grounds, the statues of winged boars looking down upon them. The people standing at the foot of the pillars, whom Draco had assumed were looking at the statues, were holding Probity Probes. Their wands were out.

Draco saw one of their faces and took an instinctive step back. “That’s a Death Eater,” he hissed to Granger. “The one on the left. Dewhirst.”

An elderly woman wearing a frayed old hat bumped into Granger and said, affronted, “Excuse me!”

“Sorry,” Granger squeaked, and they all backed off the path together.

“‘Scuse me, marm,” said Dewhirst to the elderly woman in a deep, oily voice. “Arms out, please. We’re checking everyone who goes in and out of the grounds.”

“ _Checking?_ ” the woman spluttered. “ _Checking?_ And why should you need to check me?”

“Security’s sake, marm,” said Dewhirst, who was already using the Probity Probe to nudge the woman’s arms up. “Dumbledore was a great wizard, and in these uncertain times, we can’t be sure of the type of people who might come to his funeral … the things they might do … I’m sure you understand. We want to keep our fellow witches and wizards safe.”

Dewhirst nodded to the witch and other wizard who were manning the pillars. The witch flicked her wand at the old woman. There was no result, which seemed to satisfy her. She signaled to the second wizard, who waved the old woman through, thanking her for her patience in a voice much more sincere than Dewhirst’s.

“Come on,” Potter muttered. Draco didn’t need telling twice. Dewhirst’s eyes were roving over Potter and Granger, who had been searching in her bag, trying to seem preoccupied. The ruse was growing thin, as the bag would look, to any normal person, like something that could be searched in about six seconds.

They retreated to a spot halfway between the gates and the village, settling in a dip by a grassy knoll. Granger and Potter sat on the grass in a passable imitation of pretending to watch the castle’s reflection in the lake.

“What are we going to do?” Granger whispered.

“The Forest is the only way in besides the front gates,” Draco said.

“What? How do you know that?” said Weasley’s voice from under the Cloak.

“Weasley,” Draco said, “do you Obliviate yourself every morning to remove all danger of retaining information? I spent last year trying to kill Albus Dumbledore. I know all the castle’s weaknesses when they’re on high security. And it looks like they are now.”

“I don’t understand,” said Potter, frowning. “Why would a Death Eater be looking out for mayhem at Dumbledore’s funeral?”

Draco rolled his eyes, but before he could disabuse Potter of this idea, Granger beat him to it.

“Oh, Harry,” she sighed, “you didn’t believe any of that, did you? They’ll be there in case it’s a rallying point of sympathy for Dumbledore’s supporters. I’m sure they’ll be trying to sniff out Order sympathizers.”

Potter thought for a moment before saying furiously, “I bet this was Snape’s idea. It wasn’t enough just to murder Dumbledore. He had to use his funeral to try and sabotage the Order.”

Draco shifted on the grass, not looking at the three of them, remembering Snape’s face in the shadows of Grimmauld Place. _I couldn’t have done anything to stop Snape,_ he told himself. He’d been trapped in Grimmauld Place, and Snape had made the Vow. Besides, he might well have saved his father by having that conversation with Snape.

Granger was looking sympathetically at Potter. “It’s awful, isn’t it? Knowing what he did, and he’s just—just walking around in there as if he didn’t do anything at all.” She shook her head. “We’ll have to look out for him once we’re in the castle, too.”

“Greasy git,” Weasley mumbled.

“Slimy old bat,” Potter added.

Granger, clearly suppressing a smile, glanced over in Draco’s general direction. “All right. What’s this entrance in the Forest, Malfoy?”

Draco hesitated. He didn’t want to go into the Forest, but what was the alternative? Sit here and torment himself with thoughts about what might be happening to his parents?

“Yeah,” he muttered, “the fence has a Gamekeeper’s entrance somewhere in the Forest. Touch the fence anywhere else, and you set off a Caterwauling Charm. I followed alongside it for ages last year and it runs right into the heart of the place. I never actually found the gate, though. Kept bumping into all the foul stuff that idiot keeps in there.”

“Don’t call Hagrid an idiot,” Granger snapped, at the same time that Potter said,

“You keep your mouth shut about Hagrid.” Whatever Weasley’s indignant remark was, Draco couldn’t hear it over the other two.

“Yeah, yeah,” he yawned, getting to his feet again. “Let’s go.”

“Go—go into the Forest?” Weasley said. “No, come off it. There’s got to be another way. Why can’t we use the Shrieking Shack?”

“People know about that one by now,” Draco said.

“Snape definitely does,” Potter said. “He’s probably closed off the other end, or put some kind of charm on it to tell him if it’s being used.” He started down the hill. “Come on, Ron, we’ve made trips into the Forest loads of times.”

“Yes,” said Hermione, “and when exactly have they gone _well?_ ”

Potter didn’t answer, but he did crack a sheepish grin back at her.

Draco trailed ten feet behind them, watching Potter and Granger murmur to the space in the air where Weasley was. Weasley’s voice said something low and worried, and Granger and Potter both hastened to reassure him. “It’ll be fine, Ron,” Granger was saying softly—though now she looked slightly worried herself. Potter didn’t miss that. He said something else, clearly meant to brace the both of them, and then Weasley muttered something from under the Cloak, and then all three of them were grinning, laughing quietly together.

Draco watched them with slight resentment, unable to stop comparing their friendship to his own with Crabbe and Goyle. Yes, Draco was best friends with Crabbe and Goyle, but really Crabbe and Goyle were best friends with each other and Draco was something else. He knew they told each other things that they didn’t tell him—worries about their grades and their looks and their families—and he also knew that they spoke about him secretly, with occasional resentment.

 _They never actually confide in me at all,_ he thought. _Not really._

Then Draco shook his head hard, shook himself out of it. He didn’t _want_ Crabbe or Goyle’s total confidence. What would he have done with it, or the total confidence of any of his friends? Why would he let anyone into a place where their thoughts and feelings and insecurities could disturb him, rattle around in him, occupy him? Influence him? No. None of that. He was the one with the influence, it was how he’d been raised. Like his mother and his father, he would be listened to with respect and then described later with envy. He didn’t want anyone inside. He was the consummate Occlumens.

* * *

Even in the late afternoon, the forest was dark. Within minutes of their trespass into the tree line, the air grew unnaturally still and silent, and soon the trees were so thick, towering so high overhead, that it might have been nighttime. Adding to the eerie atmosphere was the fact that they had to whisper, not wanting to attract the attention of anything that lived in the forest. Hermione was sure that if the centaurs encountered them, they would remember her and Harry from their disastrous trip into the forest with Umbridge in fifth year. Ron, of course, was steeling himself for the possibility of Acromantulas.

There was no path alongside the school fence. Clearly it had been built to be as inconvenient as possible, probably to deter anyone who might be trying to do exactly what they were doing. Hermione kept hearing Ron and Malfoy, neither of whom could see their own legs, tripping over roots and swearing under their breath.

Hermione couldn’t help thinking that between this and the identification of R.A.B., Malfoy was proving himself bizarrely useful, despite being one of the last people on Earth she would have picked to know about the Horcruxes. As she glanced over at his Disillusioned figure slipping past an old oak, she remembered, too, the way he’d knocked her out of the way of the Exploding Hex at the wedding. What had that been about?

It had probably been repayment for saving him and his family in Grimmauld Place, she thought as they wended their way between a pair of thorny bushes. He probably didn’t like the idea of having a life debt to a Mudblood.

She was surprised to find that the thought stung. Hermione had all but stopped feeling Malfoy’s insults over the years. She remembered the foul comments, of course, remembered how he’d turned to his mother last year in Madam Malkin’s and said, _if you’re wondering what the smell is,_ _a Mudblood just walked in._ But she knew, had known for years, what Malfoy was—a bigoted little worm without two scruples to rub together—and so nothing he said managed to hurt her. In fact, because of the way Harry and Ron reacted to the comments, they served as a reminder of how lucky she was to have kind, loyal friends who would have died rather than ascribe to that sort of prejudice.

But now, the idea of Malfoy thinking those things made her feel oddly sore. Hermione didn’t know why. Was it the fact that she’d saved him from capture by the Death Eaters twice now? Did she feel that, having done him a favor that he frankly had never earned, he owed her his respect? Or was it mere exposure? Certainly she’d seen more of Malfoy over the last week than she ever had before. He’d even slept in her house, for Merlin’s sake.

Yes, that was it. He’d slept in her house, and had seen the pictures of her and her family that hung in the halls; he’d slept in her guest bedroom, and had drawn a glass of water from the same kitchen where she’d celebrated birthdays and Christmases; he’d seen the library full of books that her mother and father had built up over the course of her life. He had seen her at the Burrow, eaten meals with her, watched her laughing with Harry and Ron over dinner with that cold, sullen look of his, always quiet, but still _there,_ still watching. It was disturbing to imagine that someone could come that close to you, see your everyday life at close quarters, and still despise you for nothing more than existing.

But now that Hermione was mulling over that bizarre night at her house, she realized for the first time that he hadn’t made a single crack at her family then. She remembered now that she’d spent the whole night silently waiting for him to do it. Certainly his parents had met her lowest expectations right away, whispering to each other about what their options might be rather than staying under a Mudblood’s roof. But Malfoy himself hadn’t done it, though he’d had endless opportunity.

Hermione didn’t know what all this came to, but she forced herself to stop trying to find Malfoy’s invisible outline in the dark. _Don’t give him any power,_ she told herself fiercely. _Don’t expect anything out of people like that._ If he decided to be less of a human canker sore, good for him, but Hermione wasn’t going to put her own feelings at risk by hoping for it.

Finally, after what must have been a mile or more, Harry’s Polyjuice wore off. He turned back into himself, somewhat to Hermione’s relief. Even knowing it was him, the sight of a stranger in her peripheral vision had been occasionally unsettling. “All right, Harry,” she said. “You should get under the Cloak, too, and—”

“No way,” Ron said, finally tearing the Cloak off himself. “I’m already worse than useless, knocking around in this thing. It’ll be twice as bad with both of us under there. Hermione, put it back in that bag, would you? No one’s going to see us in here.”

He thrust the Cloak at her unceremoniously. She scowled, but took it without comment, knowing he was on edge from the possibility of giant spiders.

Ron had turned away, but Harry had noticed her scowl. “We’ll Disillusion ourselves too,” he said in a calming sort of way. “And—”

Hermione raised a hand. He broke off.

“Do you hear that?” she whispered.

“I did,” came Malfoy’s voice.

It happened again. There was a slow dragging sound coming from somewhere in the trees ahead.

Harry immediately Disillusioned himself. Hermione dashed to Ron’s side and did the same for him. His face, looking slightly green, took on the color and texture of the ancient, gnarled trees, and without any of the others in sight, Hermione suddenly felt very alone. She wondered if she should Disillusion herself, too, but it was dark enough that she worried they might lose each other if they were all concealed.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Try not to step on any dry wood, or it’ll snap.”

“Wands out,” Harry added. Hermione clutched hers tight and heard the others stepping carefully after her.

After a moment, though, Hermione stopped again. The dragging sound had gone silent. There was nothing now but the trees and the slow, prickling feeling of being watched. The sound’s apparent absence made Hermione want to turn tail and sprint. Where had it gone? _What_ was it? Or had it sensed them, and was now lurking ahead, waiting for them?

They started walking again, but Ron was moaning under his breath. “I don’t like this,” he said. “I really don’t like this …”

“Careful, Weasley,” Malfoy muttered. “It probably smells fear.”

“Shut up,” Harry hissed.

_Crunch._

They all stopped moving.

But Hermione had seen it. Twenty paces ahead was an ancient, wrought-iron gate with the Hogwarts crest on it, an ancient padlock chained to its front. “There!” she breathed.

“Make a run for it, d’you reckon?” Ron whispered.

“No,” Harry said. “We’ll bring more attention to ourselves. Just—be ready.”

They crept forward, but Hermione couldn’t stop herself from quickening her pace. The trees seemed more twisted and forbidding than ever as they picked over roots and dark earth and then—finally—stopped in front of the gate.

“Alohomora,” Hermione whispered, pointing her wand at the lock.

Nothing happened.

At their backs, the dragging sound began again, close enough this time for Hermione to pinpoint its direction. There were several more deep _crunch_ sounds.

“Oh, no,” Ron moaned. “Oh, no, oh no.” She knew he was picturing spiders chewing an animal to pieces, scuttling out of the darkness, swarming over each other to get to him next, and his fear was infecting her, too.

“Stop it, Ron,” she hissed. “We need to think!”

“Lumos,” Harry whispered, leaning over the lock. Hermione bent down and saw that a small, ugly face was sculpted into the metal. She reached out to touch it, and—

“Excuse me,” the face said loudly. “Is that polite?”

Harry and Hermione both lurched back from it so quickly that they knocked into Ron and Malfoy.

“Sorry, er,” Harry gasped, regaining his balance, “I didn’t—we didn’t mean—”

“Do _you_ like strangers fondling your face when you’re trying to get a bit of shut-eye?” the lock demanded.

Hermione glanced over at Harry’s Disillusioned face. Even without being able to make out his features, she could picture his flabbergasted expression.

“Look, we’re very sorry,” Hermione said. “We just need to get into—that is, we need to visit Hogwarts. We’re students here, and—”

The sound behind them again. A hush, and a drag.

“You ain’t the gamekeeper,” said the lock, sounding proud of itself for figuring this out. “I ain’t letting you in.”

“But we’re friends of Hagrid’s,” Harry said desperately.

“Friends of Hagrid’s?” The lock sounded suspicious. “If that’s true, you’ll know his favorite drink, won’t you? Never goes without it.”

“Madam Rosmerta’s mulled mead,” Hermione said at once.

The lock hesitated. Hermione was sure that, had it possessed a chin, it would have been stroking it. And meanwhile, behind them, the slow _thump_ and _drag_ was drawing nearer _,_ and now a higher rustling sound, too, like cloth on cloth. It could scarcely be ten feet from them now.

“All right,” the lock decided. “I’ll ring the bell.”

“Get on with it, then,” Malfoy hissed.

“Ring the bell?” Hermione whispered. “But—but Hagrid was at the wedding! He won’t be here to let us in!”

“That ain’t my problem, is it?” said the lock.

“What do we do?” Hermione whispered, turning to the invisible boys. “What—”

Her eyes widened. She lost her voice. Something massive and dark loomed out of the trees behind them.

And the sound of a cheerful bell came from it.

Hermione drew a gasping breath, her heart pounding. “ _Hagrid!_ ” she said, clutching at her chest as the Gamekeeper’s massive body squeezed between two trees, the bell still clanging somewhere inside his massive overcoat.

“Crikey,” Hagrid rumbled, patting himself down, jamming his hands into pocket after pocket and extracting several used handkerchiefs, a fistful of dazzlingly bright beads, and a dazed-looking owl. Finally he found a keyring: not the usual one that swung at his hip, but a battered, second set that Hermione had never seen before. He silenced the bell that dangled from the ring, which had been ringing itself vigorously, and stepped forward toward the gate, looking bewildered. “ _Hermione?_ Is tha’ you? How’d you get here?”

He had dropped what he’d been dragging: a heavy sack full of the unusual decorations that he’d brought to the wedding, including several orbs filled with spiky orange flowers and a lumpy woven banner made from rough strips of cloth, which he’d clearly dyed himself. Mrs. Weasley, looking overwhelmed, had insisted he not trouble himself with hanging any more decorations, and so they had gone unused.

“Hagrid,” Harry panted, lifting his Disillusionment Charm, and Ron, laughing with a hysterical kind of relief, also faded back into view beside him. Malfoy reappeared last, looking paler than usual.

Hagrid looked between Harry, Ron, and Hermione with relief. “Yer all right,” he said faintly. “Yer safe. Merlin’s beard, I though’ …”

“What happened at the wedding, Hagrid?” Ron said. “Is everyone safe?”

“I’m sorry, Ron, I couldn’t tell yeh. Tonks Disapparated with me the momen’ I grabbed me things, took me here. Course, they don’t want the Death Eaters seein’ me with members of the Order, seein’ as how I’m a Hogwarts teacher. Unsafe, like.” He shook his hairy head. “They’ll be all righ’. But you three … wha’ are you three _doin’_ here? Yeh can’t be here!”

“We need to get into Hogwarts,” said Harry. “It’s urgent, Hagrid. It’s … it’s something Dumbledore told us to do.”

Hagrid, whose mouth had been open in the obvious beginnings of a protest, closed it. After a long moment, his eyes filled with tears.

Malfoy made a derisive sound, and Hermione kicked him in the ankle. He yelped and glared down at her, and she glared back. The way he treated Hagrid was a good reminder of what he was. What he clearly _still_ was.

Hagrid had noticed none of this. “All righ’,” he said, sniffling. “Tell me wha’ you need.”

* * *

The last time Draco had been in one of these boats, he had been eleven years old, and it had been September 1st, and he had looked up at Hogwarts as it towered over him like a mountain. He’d been told about the Sorting, of course. Some families preferred to leave it mysterious and vague, like Father Christmas to a child, but that wasn’t how the Malfoys operated. His parents had told him all about what to expect from his first year, and how to navigate it to become who he was meant to be.

Now, the boats that were bearing them over the lake seemed so much smaller that Draco felt like the skiffs must have shrunk. Each fit only two people now, rather than the four that had been able to squeeze in when they were first-years. Potter and Weasley were in a boat ahead, and even through their Disillusionment Charms, he could see their outlines occasionally turning back to shoot glances at Draco. Or maybe they were looking at Granger, who was maintaining a stiff silence opposite him. His ankle still hurt from where she’d kicked it.

There was a single green leaf stuck in Granger’s bushy hair from the forest, and her face was serious, washed with the light that reflected up from the lake’s surface, rose and orange. Draco hadn’t missed the way she’d avoided getting into the other boat with Weasley, who had so obviously wanted her to join him to glide over the lake in the sunset.

Draco had seen the two of them dancing at the wedding. (Granger had hardly any sense of rhythm; Weasley, sub-zero.) Weasley had been closing his eyes as if he were trying to freeze the moment in his mind, but Granger, her head against Weasley’s chest, had looked almost panicked. And now she was avoiding Weasley’s eyes when he gave her compliments, and dodging romantic situations with him.

 _Mudblood’s got cold feet,_ Draco thought, but the thought had hardly formed when it twisted in his head, serpentine, and he felt suddenly uncomfortable, unable to look at her.

He thought inexplicably of Dumbledore’s blue eyes. He remembered Dumbledore’s look of disgust at the word Mudblood, and the way he’d made Draco promise to treat everyone at headquarters “with respect.”

Well, he’d done that, hadn’t he? And he was out of headquarters now, and besides, the old man was dead, so, no need to hold up his end of a stupid, pointless bargain about what he called people. As if it mattered.

Granger never even seemed to care when he called her that. In fact, hadn’t she called _herself_ that when they were on their way out of Grimmauld Place? He remembered her yelling it: _would you rather touch a Mudblood, or die?_

But that memory only made Draco feel more uncomfortable. Had she thought that was the only way she thought she could get through to them, by calling herself that?

 _Well, it’s what she is,_ said a voice in his mind. It was … was terminological accuracy, that was all.

He remembered something else, too, as Hogwarts came so close that its shadow swallowed them. He remembered Granger’s face when they were all twelve years old, when she and Weasley had come onto the Quidditch pitch at that contested practice. He heard his own voice. _Nobody asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood._

As the Gryffindor team had exploded into outrage, she’d just looked at him, slightly confused, not knowing what he meant, or what the word was. It must have been the first time she’d heard it, and now, five years later—

 _Stop thinking about it,_ Draco told himself. He looked away from Granger and up at the castle. Hogwarts, at least, was as huge as it ever had been, still large enough to make him feel small and new, as if he’d never done anything in his life.

The boats took them through the curtain of ivy, through the underground passage, and up to the side entrance. They disembarked, and soon they were padding down the empty school halls. Potter, who had donned the Invisibility Cloak, was whispering directions to them, reading off the old piece of parchment Draco had seen in his rucksack earlier that week. He’d been right—it _had_ been something out of the ordinary—but Draco couldn’t help envying Potter that map and the Cloak. Last year could have been so much easier if he’d had tools like those.

Soon they reached the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to the Head’s office. Draco had never been inside.

“All right,” Potter muttered. “Er. Cockroach Cluster.”

“ _Cockroach Cluster?_ ” Draco repeated, disbelieving.

“Dumbledore used to—” Potter began to explain, but then the gargoyle sprang aside.

They all hesitated, taken aback.

“McGonagall must have set the password to be his name,” Granger whispered. “Come on, let’s hurry.”

They stepped onto the stone spiral staircase that rose gently toward the office door.

“No one’s in there?” Weasley said.

“It’s empty,” Potter confirmed, taking off the Cloak. “And … yeah, looks like Hagrid’s still distracting Snape at the front entrance. I’m just worried about getting the sword out of that case Dumbledore had it in. I’m sure _Alohomora_ won’t work on it.”

“Maybe he’ll have prepared some sort of contingency plan,” Granger said, “for if you needed to get to it.”

Potter didn’t answer.

“Doubting Dumbledore, are you?” Draco muttered. “Welcome to the club. He didn’t leave me and my parents anything useful, that’s for damn sure, and he promised us he’d help us stay alive.”

Potter looked at Draco with the usual dislike, but there was a hint of doubt there, too.

“Ignore him,” Weasley said, shooting Draco a dirty look. “Harry, mate, Dumbledore knew what he was doing. He was thinking years ahead with these Horcruxes. You told us he’s been working on all this since our second year. He wouldn’t just let it all go to waste.”

“Yeah, well, let’s hope,” Potter said. They stepped off at the office door and pushed it open.

Draco’s eyes found it immediately: a long crystal case fixed at the opposite end of the Head’s office. The room itself was a peaceful, circular room filled with many gently whirring silvery objects, and like Dumbledore himself, it set Draco immediately and inexplicably at ease. With all the portraits of former heads snoozing on the walls, it was hard to imagine anything truly bad happening in this office.

Except that the long crystal case was empty.

“No,” Potter said, striding toward it. “No!”

Weasley was looking around the rest of the office, as if hoping he’d find the sword lying discarded on one of the spindly-legged tables. Granger was standing in place, obviously doing some hard thinking.

“The Owlery,” she said. “We can send Professor McGonagall an owl, tell her to come back from London, and we can hide somewhere in the castle overnight. The Room of Requirement, maybe.”

“Why do we need McGonagall?” Draco said with some distaste.

“To find out where she’s put the sword.”

Draco raised his eyebrows. “Can’t you think of anyone else to ask, Granger?”

All three of them looked at him, uncomprehending. Draco rolled his eyes and walked over to the portrait directly behind the Head’s desk. “Excuse me,” he said, tapping the golden frame.

The painting of Albus Dumbledore opened its eyes.

The Gryffindors’ faces lit up, and they crowded over to Draco. Potter nearly knocked him out of the way in his haste to speak to Dumbledore. Draco thought he saw a flash of something like indignation in Potter’s face.

“Professor Dumbledore,” Potter said. “We need your help.”

“Do you?” said the portrait with an exact copy of Dumbledore’s usual polite interest.

“First of all, did you figure anything else out about the Horcruxes?” Potter demanded. “Anything at all before you died?”

“Potter,” Draco said, exasperated, “he can’t tell you that. He’s not the real Dumbledore.”

“He’s—what?”

“Portraits aren’t _ghosts,_ Potter. What, did you sleep through all of History of Magic?”

Potter’s cheeks colored. “I— _no,_ ” he said. Granger made a funny noise that might have been a stifled titter.

“Well, anyway,” Draco said, “they can see what’s happening and remember what they’ve seen, that’s all.”

“That’s true,” Granger said. “He’ll just be a sort of essence of the real Dumbledore.” She glanced at the portrait, who was smiling benignly down at them. “But you’re all here to help the current headmaster, aren’t you?”

“Precisely, my dear girl,” said the portrait.

“Well, that’s all right, then,” Weasley said, brightening. “We’re on McGonagall’s side.”

“Sir,” Potter said, “did you see where Professor McGonagall put the sword that was in that case? It’s important. It’ll help her.”

“Ah, the sword …” Dumbledore’s smile faded. “Yes. Unfortunately, Minerva was forced to surrender it.”

“ _Surrender it?_ ” said Weasley and Potter at the same time.

“Why?” Granger demanded.

“A Ministry representative came in last weekend with a list of my last bequests. I had bequeathed the sword to you, Harry … but I’m afraid the Ministry has taken it for—”

“The thirty-day inspection period,” Granger groaned.

“What?” Weasley and Potter said together.

“The Ministry are allowed to inspect items that have been willed from one wizard to another.” She bristled. “That stipulation is only supposed to be used in cases of suspected Dark Magic, but I suppose the Ministry thought they might be able to figure out what Dumbledore was trying to do before he died. And now—”

“Now that the Ministry’s gone under,” Potter said numbly, “it’ll have gone straight into You-Know-Who’s hands.”

There was a horrible silence.

“Great,” Potter said. “Just perfect.” He looked at Dumbledore’s portrait with an odd, strained look, then said, seemingly unable to help himself, “You really don’t remember anything about—about … I don’t know. Your family?”

“His family?” Granger said, giving Potter a startled look.

“I’m afraid not, dear boy,” said Dumbledore wistfully. “Professor McGonagall has mentioned my brother to me, but otherwise, I cannot help you.”

They were all staring at Potter now. Weasley started, “Harry, what—”

“Forget it,” Potter muttered. “Just—your aunt was saying some … some stuff at the wedding, Ron. And that article Skeeter wrote in the _Prophet._ You must have seen it, didn’t you?”

Draco remembered reading the snippet about _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_ in one of the _Prophets_ that had been delivered to Grimmauld Place. “I read it,” he said.

The others glanced at him, looking slightly surprised as usual to see that he was there.

Draco lifted his shoulders. “What, so his mother and sister died when he was our age? Big surprise. The man was ancient. Loads of people died back then from accidental magic.” He curled his lip. “God, you’re not actually buying everything Skeeter says, are you, Potter? How gullible _are_ you, exactly? I spent our entire fourth year feeding her whatever lies I liked best. The woman prints anything she thinks will sell.”

He stopped talking. He was trying to insult Potter, but it was coming out sounding more like reassurance, which was annoying.

Weasley gave his head a little shake. “But—but what does that have to do with the Horcruxes?” he said blankly.

“Nothing,” Potter said, the troubled look clearing away from his face. “That’s what I’m saying. Forget it. The sword’s miles away, now, and it’s not safe here. We should …”

But he broke off, looking tense with possibility. “Hang on.”

“What is it?” Granger said eagerly.

“Well, while we’re here …” Potter chewed his lip for a moment. “We thought he might have hidden one here, didn’t we?”

Draco looked from one Gryffindor to the next. “Excuse me,” he said, “ _hidden one?_ How many of these Horcruxes _are_ there, exactly?”

“Six,” Granger said, “but—”

“ _Six?”_ Draco said, aghast.

“— _but_ two have been destroyed already. Dumbledore took care of one, which was an old family ring, and the other was a diary—” Granger gave him a sidelong glance— “that your dad slipped to Ginny Weasley in our second year.” She counted off on her fingers. “Then there’s the locket, which was Salazar Slytherin’s, a cup that belonged to Helga Hufflepuff …”

“The snake,” Weasley put in. “You-Know-Who’s snake.”

Granger nodded and held up her pinky finger. “… and we don’t know what the last is. It could be something belonging to Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, although I’ve read everything I could get my hands on about the Founders, and I can’t find anything that suggests Gryffindor ever had any significant object besides the sword.”

“It looks like we have some time, too,” Potter said, scanning the Marauder’s Map. “Hagrid’s done it. He’s drawn Snape right down the grounds. They’re heading for the Forest. It’ll be ages for them to get to that gate and back.”

Draco exhaled, silently relieved. He’d promised Snape that he and his family wouldn’t be a threat to the Dark Lord, after all, and what these three were doing … well, it was the gravest threat to the Dark Lord he could imagine.

 _I’m not helping them, though,_ Draco thought quickly. He was just … just _watching_ , that was all. He hadn’t done anything for them that they wouldn’t have done themselves. It didn’t take a genius to follow the fence to see if there was a second entrance to the grounds, and R.A.B.—well, he’d said it himself. Sirius Black had been Potter’s godfather. They would have figured it out eventually. Yes, Draco was still neutral. He was only here at all to ensure he got back to his parents safely.

And yet he was already thinking about the fourth Horcrux. _It could be the Diadem of Ravenclaw,_ he thought. Surely Granger had come across that in one of her books. He waited for her to suggest it.

But they all stood there for a while in silence. Potter paced the office, saying, “The cup … Ravenclaw … Gryffindor,” in uneven cycles, like he’d had a Vocalizing Charm put on him that was gradually wearing off.

“I don’t know, Harry,” Granger said after a while. “Even if we determine which of the two it is, and _what_ it is, how are we supposed to find where it is? Hogwarts is … to search the entire castle would be …”

“It could take ages, yeah,” Weasley said. “Maybe it’d be better just to use the time to make sure we can get out of here safely.”

Potter looked stubborn. “It’ll be much harder to get back into Hogwarts once the school year’s started, and almost impossible to search with no one noticing. If he’s got one here, this is our best chance, and I—I just have a feeling about it, all right? This was where he chose his new name. Where he gathered the Death Eaters. Hogwarts made him special. It meant everything to him.”

Draco glanced at Weasley and Granger, who were exchanging an uneasy look. Potter was speaking as if he knew the Dark Lord personally.

Well, if Potter was going to run down the clock until Snape got back, Draco couldn’t let them sit around and wait to figure it out.

“The Diadem of Ravenclaw,” he said.

They all looked at him.

“The Lost Diadem,” he said. “My father told me about it during O.W.L. year. Back in his time, the Slytherins used to look for the Diadem during the Easter holidays instead of studying. It was a sort of tradition.”

“Why?” Weasley said.

“Keep up, Weasley. It was Rowena Ravenclaw’s invention, wasn’t it? It’s supposed to make you cleverer, obviously.” He shrugged. “Pretty stupid use of time, if you ask me. Not like the examiners would have let you wear a crown during the tests, even if you found the thing. Or maybe they’d make an exception if you dug up a historical artifact.”

“Lost Diadem,” Potter repeated. “How long has it been lost for?”

“I don’t know,” Draco said. “Centuries, probably.”

“Yes, well, we’re looking for something that was found at most fifty years ago,” Granger said impatiently.

“Granger, do you really think the Dark Lord would have _told_ anyone he found it?”

“No,” Potter said. “Riddle definitely wouldn’t have told anyone.” He was pacing faster, now, excited. “Still, though … where would he have left it?”

“The Slytherin dormitories?” Weasley suggested.

Draco looked up to the ceiling. These three were never going to complete their quest, ever. “Weasley … haven’t I just _told_ you that the Slytherins _recreationally hunted the Diadem,_ every year, for decades? Don’t you think we might have found the damn thing if it were right under our noses?”

“Maybe your lot just weren’t as good at magic as You-Know-Who,” Weasley shot back, red in the face.

Draco let out a derisive laugh. “What, and the four of _us_ are going to have such a different outcome?”

“He wouldn’t have left it in the Slytherin dormitories,” Potter broke in, speaking again with that slightly uncanny certainty. “If it was Ravenclaw’s, he might have left it in Ravenclaw Tower, and that’d show how … how in touch he was with Hogwarts. Otherwise, he’d have wanted to put it somewhere that was important to him personally. Somewhere that showed how powerful he was, or how magical.”

Weasley looked unnerved. “Blimey, you really understand him,” he said with a strained laugh.

“But what sort of place would that have been?” Granger said. “And when would he have done this, anyway?”

“We know he came back to ask Dumbledore for the Defense job,” Potter said.

“But he wouldn’t have had very much time at all, then,” said Granger.

Potter didn’t seem deterred by this line of reasoning. “How much time do you need to plant something somewhere?” he said.

Weasley shook his head. “But this is a Horcrux we’re talking about. He put a whole army of Inferi in that cave to guard that locket. You really think he’d just dart into the castle, no time to put up protective enchantments or anything, and stick it somewhere?”

“Well—” Potter started, sounding defensive. But then he sucked in a sharp breath. The Map fluttered out of his hand, and he looked at Draco.

It hit Draco at the exact same time. There _was_ somewhere hidden in Hogwarts, somewhere that nearly no one in the school had ever known how to enter. There was a place that would have been the perfect spot for a small, unobtrusive object to be placed—and protected—and forgotten.

Hadn’t Draco even _seen it_? He’d practically lived in the Room of Hidden Things last year. He’d slept there night after night after night, had gone up and down every alley of discarded objects, had memorized his way through that maze.

Hadn’t he seen, on multiple occasions, an eye-catching bust wearing a wig—and a battered old tiara?

“What?” said Granger, looking between Draco and Potter. “What is it?”

Weasley looked alarmed. “Harry? Are you all right?”

“More than all right,” said Potter, snatching up the Map. “I know where it is. I know where the Lost Diadem is. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com) :)


	6. The Lost Diadem

Three-foot-long plume quills as soft and fluffy as trails of smoke, their nibs planted into vases like the stems of flowers. Networks of spiderwebs so thickly draped with dust that they looked like the most finely spun lace. Towers of bookshelves, and dated chairs with upholstered backs, and accordions of curtains falling ten, twenty, thirty feet to the floor, cataracts of brocade. Cool light emanating from a source impossibly high above, from an uncertain ceiling, as if the moon were hidden behind several layers of thick paint.

Hermione was wide-eyed. It was impossible to take in everything at once, and soon her neck was sore from how many times her head swiveled upon it. Harry, who had been inside the Room of Hidden Things once before, was striding determinedly ahead, scanning for the Horcrux, but Malfoy, who had spent cumulative weeks in the Room last year, had his hands deep in his pockets, and his eyes were flicking from side to side only reluctantly.

“This place is unbelievable,” Ron whispered.

“I know,” Hermione whispered back. It felt wrong to speak at any real volume, like they were in a library full of ancient books.

Harry glanced back at them. “Hermione, anything?”

She leapt. The Marauder’s Map was held in her limp right hand. She’d been tasked with keeping an eye on Snape, since Harry had seen the Horcrux before and would be more use trying to find it undistracted. But at the sight of the Room, the Map had slipped her mind.

She scanned it. “All clear,” she said, hurrying to catch up with Harry and Malfoy. “He and Hagrid are still in the middle of the Forest.”

“I don’t get it,” Ron said, jogging up behind them too, frowning up at the mountains of objects. “How can You-Know-Who really have thought he was the only one to know about this place, when it’s full of stuff?”

“Well,” Harry said, glancing around a corner at yet more towers of objects, “you can find it without understanding what you’ve found. Fred and George and Dumbledore all found the Room by accident. I’d bet all this is from students who only came in here once and then couldn’t find it again.”

“That doesn’t explain this,” Ron said, pointing at a 4x4 stack of faded yellow sofas that crisscrossed up like logs at a bonfire.

“Oh, honestly, you two.” Hermione sighed. “Students didn’t do this. Didn’t you read _any_ of the literature I wrote for S.P.E.W.?”

Harry and Ron exchanged a guilty look. “Er,” Harry said.

“ _Well_ , if you had _read_ the pamphlet I distributed in September of last year, you would know that the Hogwarts house-elves are responsible for repairing, maintaining, _and_ disposing of all objects that have been misenchanted, disenchanted, hexed, or otherwise magically discombobulated, even at— _even at!_ —great risk to their own physical safety.”

“Right,” said Ron. “And that means … what, exactly?”

Hermione saw, with a hot jolt of irritation, that he was trying not to grin. Ron had gotten much better about house-elves over the years—he’d grown fond of Dobby, at any rate—but whenever they’d visited headquarters over the summer, he’d still treated Kreacher little better than Sirius had, and he still acted like _this_ sometimes.

“It’s not funny, Ron,” she said hotly. “I’m saying that all this—” She waved around at the mountains of objects— “represents hundreds of years of enslavement. Look at all this work, and not a single Knut paid for any of it, not even a thank you or a word of recognition. It’s just one more way that it’s all shoved out of sight, so wizards don’t have to think about what they’ve done—what they’re still doing.”

Harry looked slightly troubled, Ron, undecided.

Malfoy, on the other hand, finally stopped feigning deafness and said, “Granger, would you stop sermonizing? House-elves don’t even _want_ freedom.” He jerked his pointed chin at the surrounding piles of objects. “You couldn’t get this lot to quit if you offered them all the money in Gringotts. They love serving wizards.”

Ron looked more disturbed by this than by anything Hermione had said, and Hermione knew why. How many times had Ron used that exact line of argument in their fourth and fifth years when they discussed elf rights? She couldn’t help feeling even angrier and more disappointed by this. Was that really what it took to see how abhorrent your own complacency was—to hear it come out of the mouth of an enemy?

With a savage sort of relief, she turned her irritation with Ron onto Malfoy instead. “Oh, really?” she said, her voice rising. “How would you know what elves want, exactly? Have you ever spoken to an elf beyond ordering them around? Tell me: in all the years that Dobby lived at your house, how many times did you ask him anything about his thoughts, feelings, or opinions? Say it’s more than zero and I’ll swallow Fiendfyre.”

“I—that’s not the—”

“Yes, it is the point. At least most other wizards can claim ignorance. They can all say their house-elves were thrilled to be doing their bidding, because unfortunately, most elves _haven’t_ been given the opportunity to learn about what freedom would feel like. But you don’t even have that much. Dobby hated being enslaved. He was thrilled to be free.”

Malfoy stood his ground. “Oh, yeah?” he said. “And why do you care? Let me guess: it’s yet another way to show off how much better than other people you are. I didn’t realize your hero complex was even worse than Potter’s.”

Hermione let out a high, strained laugh that sounded nothing like her. “Why do I care?” Her voice rose. “Why do you _think_ I care? Why do _you,_ Malfoy, think I might give a damn about how people treat other thinking, feeling creatures that most wizards think are beneath them? You don’t think that might have any personal relevance for me?”

There was a long, ringing silence. Hermione hadn’t expected the words to land with such a palpable thud. Ron looked stricken. Harry, for the first time, had stopped scanning for Horcruxes. They were both staring at her as if they’d never realized any of this for themselves.

Something strange, meanwhile, was happening to Malfoy’s face. His curled lip was twitching downward as if he were losing control of his facial muscles. His grey eyes were shadowed, difficult to read, but they kept straying away from her and then flying back onto her, as if it were painful to look at her, yet impossible to look away.

“Let’s … let’s split up,” Hermione said. “It’ll be faster that way. Harry—” She glanced at him, the one she was least frustrated with— “let’s go that way. You two go right.”

Ron and Malfoy didn’t even argue. They turned and walked off, several feet apart, not speaking.

Harry was looking uncertainly at Hermione.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly as they set off to the left, staring down at the Map but not really seeing it. “I … I didn’t mean to waste time, we should have been searching for …”

“No,” Harry said quickly, “it’s all right. Er. It’s fine. Really.”

Hermione swallowed past the lump in her throat, her eyes burning. She hated this tendency she’d developed over the last couple years, this new inability to discuss anything she cared about without wanting to cry—especially since her tears always panicked Harry, and made Ron assume the somber look of someone attending a wake.

“They’re still in the Forest,” she said, tucking the Map away. “Plenty of time.”

“Good,” Harry said. “That’s—”

He broke off and stopped in his tracks. His face had gone blank.

“Harry?” she said.

He pointed ahead. Then he burst into a sprint toward an open cabinet, inside which stood a bust wearing a wig.

Hermione’s heart leapt. She ran after him, hot on his heels, and soon they were breaking out of their run together and standing for a moment, staring up at the Lost Diadem.

“Is that …” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I can see the inscription.”

She moved up to his side and saw it too: _Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure._

Harry reached out toward it, but she grabbed his elbow. “You’re just going to touch it?”

“What else am I supposed to do?” he said.

“Just … wait one moment.” Hermione drew her wand and aimed it at the tiara. “ _Hexia revelio!_ ”

The tiara sat, glinting dully, motionless.

“ _Finite incantatem,”_ she said, flicking her wand, and then, with a complicated twist into a slash that she’d practiced throughout July, she added, “ _Skadus dicoperare.”_

Again, no reaction. “What was that supposed to do?” Harry asked.

“It should have shown if there were any major curses.”

“All right, then.” Harry reached out more tentatively, and Hermione held her breath.

His fingers met the tiara. Nothing happened. No horrible curse, no scream of pain from Harry. Hermione let out a long sigh, her shoulders slumping in relief.

“Dramatic,” Harry said. She met his eyes, and they both broke into relieved chuckles. “Hey, you two,” Harry said, raising his voice. “We’ve found it! We’ve got it!”

Ron gave a triumphant shout from the other end of the aisle, and soon he and Malfoy were jogging up to Harry and Hermione.

“Is that it?” Ron said, eyeing the diadem. “Doesn’t look like much, does it?”

“Well, it’s been sitting here Merlin knows how long,” Harry said. “It’s got her House motto on, look.”

He passed it to Ron, who held it for a moment, looking uneasy. “I can feel it,” he said.

“I would hope so, Weasley,” muttered Malfoy, eyes fixed warily on the Horcrux.

“No, you prat, I mean I can feel something inside it,” Ron said. “Hermione, look.”

He held it out to her, and as she took it, their eyes met for an awkward instant. He looked away at once, his ears turning red, and Hermione’s cheeks felt momentarily hot.

The Horcrux distracted her. The instant she touched it, she felt what Ron was referring to: the sense of life within the diadem, pulsing like a sluggish heartbeat. Hermione shivered. “I don’t like it,” she said. “What should we do with it?”

“Put it in that bag of yours,” Ron said.

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “We can’t lose this.”

“Yeah,” Ron said, “but what else are we going to do? Wear it?”

Hermione’s eyes widened, and her grip tightened on the Diadem. “Hold on,” she breathed. “That’s an idea.”

They all looked at her like she’d suggested they adopt a Blast-Ended Skrewt.

“You don’t think that’d be conspicuous at all, Granger?” said Malfoy with heavy irony. Unlike Ron, he seemed to have no trouble speaking to her, or meeting her eyes. His face had returned completely to normal, as if the argument had never happened. Hermione was strangely relieved by this. At least she didn’t have to tiptoe around him.

“I don’t mean wear it to keep it safe,” she huffed. “You said Ravenclaw designed this to enhance intelligence. If one of us puts it on, we might be able to figure out how to steal the sword back from the Ministry before the Death Eaters seize Dumbledore’s bequests. We may even have a brainwave about the locket or the cup. Maybe there’s something we’re not seeing.”

“I don’t know, Hermione,” Harry said, sounding uneasy. “You remember Dumbledore’s hand? That’s what happened when he put on the Horcrux ring. He told me he only survived the curse because—” his expression soured— “Snape helped him.”

“Well, Snape might not have really been trying to help him,” Ron reasoned.

“True,” Harry said slowly, “but I’m still not keen on the odds of Voldemort just—”

Ron and Malfoy both flinched. “Stop saying his name, would you?” Ron said.

“No,” Harry said bluntly. “Dumbledore used his name, and so will I.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Look,” Hermione broke in, “I don’t think we have much time. Dumbledore’s will would have been executed on Monday. That means there have been three days already for the Death Eaters to realize Dumbledore’s bequests are at the Ministry and take them. If they deliver the sword to Voldemort, we’ll never get it back.” She drew a sharp breath, another horrible thought striking her. “ _And_ he already knows the diary was destroyed! What if he decides to make the sword into a replacement Horcrux, to make sure his soul is still in seven parts—and this time with an object from all four Founders, the way he originally planned?”

The boys were all looking at her with varying shades of dread. Harry was the first to react. He nodded slowly, his face so pale that his lightning scar stood out like a brand on his forehead. “I think you’re right, Hermione,” he said hoarsely. “I think that’s exactly what he’d do if he got his hands on it. And then … I think there might be a possibility he even goes to check on the others, which would mean …”

“He’d know we were hunting them,” said Ron.

Their eyes all turned to the Diadem in Hermione’s hands.

“I’ll do it,” Hermione said.

“No, you won’t,” Ron said fiercely, sticking out a hand. “Give it here. I’m supposed to be sick anyway, aren’t I? If something awful happens to me, you can … can deliver me back to my family, and we can just pretend the Spattergroit got worse, and—”

“ _No,_ ” Harry said. “If anyone’s putting that thing on, it’ll be me.”

“Oh, Harry, don’t be ridiculous,” Hermione said, “you’re the symbolic head of the Order now that Dumbledore’s gone! What do you think people would do if both you and he died within a week of each other? There wouldn’t _be_ a resistance anymore.”

Harry shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. You still know about the Horcruxes, so you could carry on without me. Dumbledore left this information to three people. If I died, there would …” He swallowed. “Well, there would still be three, wouldn’t there?”

Another extremely loud silence fell. She, Ron, and Harry all hesitated. Then, at the same time, they looked at Malfoy.

There was alarm on Malfoy’s face. In the ghostly light of the room he looked even paler than usual, his thin mouth nearly colorless, as if he were freezing. It was only then that Hermione remembered what he’d said at the wedding—that he wasn’t keen to leave the country, that he didn’t want to leave his life behind, that he didn’t have a choice.

He seemed to be realizing before her eyes that there was a choice.

“I … I’m not …” he started, but he didn’t seem to know where to go with the sentence.

After a moment, he said, with a good try at his usual sneer, “I’m not putting that _thing_ on. The three of you can act the hero all you want. You can’t make me touch it.”

It eased some of the tension. “Ah, well,” Ron sighed, “at least he’s reliable. Now hand it over, Hermione.”

He made a grab for the diadem, but Hermione darted backward, out of the way. She threw her beaded bag to Harry, who caught it instinctively. “If there are physical wounds,” she said as quickly as she could, “there’s Essence of Dittany in there. If the symptoms resemble poisoning, I’ve packed a bezoar, too. For anything else, Madam Pomfrey is in the Infirmary.”

“Hermione, _no!_ ” Ron yelled, making a dash toward her.

She was already placing the diadem atop her head.

Time seemed to slow down. Ron broke out of his stride, he and Harry staring at her with nothing less than terror. Malfoy had made a strange, convulsive motion, but now he’d gone still, his eyes fixed on the diadem. Nobody breathed.

At first Hermione felt very little, not even the coldness of the diadem, since her hair was cushioning it. But then she felt something. Not pain, but easement, as if a seed of stillness was planted in her mind, flowering outward, cooling all the agitated heat in her thoughts. The idea of Voldemort with Gryffindor’s sword, the weight of finding the remaining Horcruxes, the hurt and anger she’d felt toward Ron and Malfoy and even Harry, the anxiety of what might, even now, be happening at the Burrow … these things remained in her head, but they seemed to separate like the ingredients of an antidote in a cauldron, precipitating downward into individual containers, where she could analyze each individually.

 _It’s a Horcrux,_ she reminded herself. _It’s dangerous._

But it didn’t feel dangerous. It felt as if her brain had been removed from a clamp for the first time in months—maybe for the first time in years.

“I’m all right,” she said quite calmly. Ron and Harry unleashed a breath as one, seeming to sink in on themselves with relief, as if someone had let air out of their bodies. But Malfoy kept staring at her, the shock and disbelief in his expression unchanged.

“The sword,” Hermione said. “We’re trying to solve two different problems with it. The first is the need to destroy Horcruxes. The second is the possibility of Voldemort transforming it into a new, active fifth Horcrux. We have to think about the two problems separately. They might have separate answers.”

“All right,” said Harry. “Which one do we solve first?”

His words sounded far away. Hermione didn’t answer. She often felt as if she could read lines out of a textbook in her mind, but at the moment, she felt as if whole mental libraries were reopening to her, regurgitating vast quantities of detail, facts connecting to each other like mapped constellations. Why should they be limited to the sword? Almost certainly there were other goblin-made weapons that had imbibed Basilisk venom, or Callacot blood, which, she’d read, was also toxic enough to destroy a Horcrux. The Callacot had gone extinct in 1829, but there were at least nine known cases of wizards slaying them. Two of those wizards were prominent enough to have displays of their possessions in Wizarding museums, one in Dresden and one in Nairobi, and although the records hadn’t provided detail on how they slew the Callacots, it was entirely possible that they could have done so with goblin-made swords, especially since swords as surrogate wands had been at the height of fashion in the 1700s.

“Hermione?” Ron said tentatively.

She gave her head a little shake and closed her eyes. Nairobi and Dresden were problematic as solutions, since leaving the country would mean serious complications. She withdrew from the trench of information and refocused. Which other avenues might be available? Fiendfyre? Most likely too dangerous, unless they could find a fully sealed and warded test environment, like the ones supposedly housed in the Department of Mysteries or St. Mungo’s Severe Isolation Ward. Could the Room of Requirement itself serve as a sealed environment, she wondered? Maybe, but Hermione didn’t know the nature of the Room’s enchantments, and risking it would risk the destruction of Hogwarts itself. Not Fiendfyre, then, or at least, not yet. Callacot blood: unless an obsessive conservationist still had a body of the extinct animal, magically preserved, it was an unlikely option. The Curse of Devouring: definitely not ideal, as the caster would suffer a slow, wasting disease. Basilisk venom—

A snippet of conversation rose immediately out of her mind. Ron, sitting on his bed during one of their Horcrux discussions, saying, _“Oh, well, lucky we’ve got such a large supply of Basilisk fangs, then. I was wondering what we were going to do with them.”_

A thrill shot through her. Her eyes opened. She felt as if she had been thinking for a long while, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. The answer was obvious. So obvious, in fact, that she laughed.

“What?” Harry said as she took off the Diadem.

“We don’t need the sword to destroy Horcruxes,” she said. “We’re right above the Chamber of Secrets. The Basilisk is still there.”

Harry and Ron let out exclamations at the same time that echoed in the Room. “Let’s go,” Harry said, already turning for the door. They all sprinted toward it together.

“You sure you’re all right?” Ron said, looking over at Hermione.

“I’m fine, Ron. I feel completely normal. Actually, I—”

She broke off. She’d glanced down at the Marauder’s Map, and shock penetrated through the residual calm the Diadem had given her.

“ _What?_ ” she choked out, breaking out of her run by the door. The others halted beside her.

“What is it?” Harry said sharply.

Hermione shoved the Map toward him. The boys bent their heads over the parchment.

Empty for the summer, the map of the castle only wore a few black dots.

One, Severus Snape, was traversing the grounds at what seemed to be an impossible speed.

Four others were nearly at Hogwarts’ front doors. _Geoffrey Dewhirst, Alecto Carrow, Amycus Carrow, Corban Yaxley._

Malfoy was the first to speak. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

“How did they know?” Hermione whispered.

“Do … you don’t think Hagrid gave something away?” Ron said.

Harry looked up from the Map, his face drawn. “It doesn’t matter how,” he said. “We have to get to the Chamber. We haven’t got much time—Snape’s moving so fast, he must be on a broom.”

“The Chamber?” Malfoy said in disbelief. “We need to run! What use is a Basilisk fang if Snape catches you?”

“They won’t be able to find us in the Chamber,” Harry said impatiently. “They can’t speak Parseltongue. We can stay there until they’ve gone.”

“What, and starve to death down there? Snape _lives_ here, Potter!”

Hermione clutched more tightly to the Diadem, and as if in response, another pulse of blissful calm seemed to issue from it, up from her arm, into her mind. Surely, the instinct said, there was no need to rush. This was no real risk, because if the Death Eaters confronted them, she could put on the Diadem and fight them, and she would do so with profound competence.

She shook her head, feeling disoriented, and slid the Diadem into her beaded bag. Her hands felt empty without it. “Harry’s right,” she said. “We should try to get to the Chamber while we’re here. It’s going to be a risk to get out of the castle either way.”

“All right, all right, fine,” Malfoy snapped. “But I’m taking the Invisibility Cloak.”

Ron let out a disbelieving laugh. “No, you bloody well aren’t.”

“I can’t be seen, Weasley!” Malfoy hissed. “If any of them see me, I’ll have to kill them, do you not understand that?”

There was the briefest of pauses. Malfoy’s lips were pursed, and he ran one hand through his white-blond hair, and—for an instant—his eyes flew over to Hermione, who felt a strange jolt low in her stomach, remembering the way his hand had jerked in hers when his father had killed Dolohov. In the week since, had he been steeling himself to do the same?

Malfoy was already looking back at Ron and Harry, both of whom looked slightly repulsed by his words. “There’s no other way,” Malfoy said, his face slightly wild now. “What else am I supposed to do? If the Dark Lord finds out I’m alive, he’ll know my parents are alive, he’ll find us, he’ll make an example—”

Harry thrust the Cloak at Malfoy, who fell silent. Fleeting surprise passed over his face. Ron, too, looked poleaxed. Then Malfoy took the Cloak and donned it without another word.

“You’ll have to read the Map for us, then, Malfoy,” Hermione said. “We can’t read it if we’re Disillusioned, it’ll just look like whatever’s behind it.”

“Hermione,” said Ron, obvious distrust in his voice.

He didn’t need to say more. Hermione understood the source of his unease and knew Harry understood, too. If they gave Malfoy both the Cloak and the Map, he could sneak off at any time, abandon them and make sure he got out safely.

The moment was uncomfortable. No matter how he’d sneered, and mocked, and played up his reluctance, Malfoy had helped them reach this point. But to trust him with two of their greatest tools … Hermione couldn’t help thinking of Dumbledore, and of the loathing on Snape’s face as he’d murdered him. Were they making the same mistake?

But then she thought, too, of the decision Malfoy had made in the instant that spell had coursed toward them under the marquee. She remembered the hard weight of him colliding into her, sending her to safety. She wasn’t so sure he would turn tail and flee here, leaving them to die.

“It’s fine,” Harry said. “He needs us.” He turned to the patch of air where Malfoy had vanished. “You need us to get back to your parents.”

A brief silence. Then Malfoy’s hand came from nothing and took the Map from Hermione’s grip. “I know,” he said coldly. “Thanks for the reminder, Potter.”

* * *

Three Disillusionment Charms later, they were hurrying down corridor after corridor, leaping down staircases two at a time. Draco was trying his best to direct them to the bathroom on the second floor, but the Gryffindors kept pulling too far ahead, unable to see each other well enough to cluster more closely. It was like herding cats.

“Where’s Snape?” Potter asked, breathing hard.

“Great Hall,” Draco said. “He hasn’t left the first floor—must be guarding the entrance.”

“Anyone near the bathroom?” Weasley panted, as they flew around and around a spiral staircase so quickly that it left Malfoy dizzy.

“Not yet. Left here,” he whispered. “ _Left here, Weasley!_ ” They had crept out onto the fourth floor corridor, and Amycus Carrow, squat and lumpy, presumably from the effects of many years’ curses, was at the far end of the hall.

Just in time, Weasley wheeled around the corner where Granger’s nearly invisible arm was frantically beckoning him. Carrow apparently hadn’t discerned their Disillusioned outlines, but he was stopping periodically to say, “ _Finite incantatem!”_

The spell whooshed down the hall beside them. Their Disillusionment Charms held.

“Come on,” Draco said, leading them down a secret stairwell behind a tapestry.

But after several more tense minutes, as they crept through the second floor hall toward the girls’ bathroom, Draco realized two dots were converging on them. Alecto Carrow and Dewhirst were at opposite ends of the hall, closing slowly inward. “Stop,” he hissed. “We can’t keep going.”

“Malfoy, it’s right there,” Potter whispered.

“I know,” Draco hissed back. “But if we go that way, we’ll be blocked in. They’re coming from both sides.”

“Which way, then?” came Granger’s voice.

“That corridor, back there, it’s the only—”

“But there are four of us,” Weasley whispered. “We’ve got surprise on our side. What if we rush Alecto, Stun her, and hide her in the bathroom?”

“Weasley, I’m not risking—”

Then several things seemed to happen at once. Behind them, Dewhirst turned the corner. On the Map, the black dot reading _Corban Yaxley_ entered a passage through a portrait near Ravenclaw Tower—the other end of which, apparently, spilled out directly ahead. Yaxley, seeing Dewhirst at the opposite end of the hall, instinctively whirled around and said,

_“Finite incantatem!”_

The flash of red-gold light rushed down the hall toward them. Potter was the only one to react in time. “ _Protego!”_ he yelled, and the light ricocheted back at Yaxley, who dodged.

“It’s him!” Yaxley roared. “It’s Potter!” He repeated the spell as they sprinted back down the hall, away from the bathroom, toward the tiny corridor that was their only chance.

“This one, this one,” Malfoy gasped, throwing himself toward the door. It burst open, and they piled through just as Yaxley’s spell tore past, down the hall.

“ _Colloportus!_ ” Granger panted, aiming her wand back at the door even as she rushed down the tiny hallway with them.

“Where does this come out?” Potter said, no longer bothering to whisper.

“The dungeons,” Draco said.

“Snape still in the Great Hall?”

“No, they must have told him something,” Draco said, tearing around a corner. “He’s in the Entrance Hall now, right in front of the door.”

“That’s fine,” Potter said in something like a snarl. “Let him try to stop us.”

Draco couldn’t believe him. “Don’t be an idiot, Potter. Snape could take all four of us with his wand hand behind his back. He’s been the Dark Lord’s protégé since he was our age.”

And now, behind them, new footsteps were echoing down the corridor, and Draco could hear Alecto, Yaxley, and Dewhirst’s voices mixing into a confused swirl.

“What do we do, what do we do, what do we do,” Granger was saying frantically.

It came to Draco in a rush of fear that felt like inspiration. “My common room! The Slytherin common room. They’ll never look in there.”

“Perfect,” Granger gasped as they burst out into the dungeons. “Which way?”

“This way,” Potter said, going left.

“I— _what?_ ” Draco tore after his outline. “How do _you_ know which way it is?”

Weasley let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “Not the time!”

Soon they were skidding to a halt in front of the patch of stone wall Draco knew so well. “Hydrus,” he said, praying they hadn’t changed the password in the last few days of school.

The stone door sank back and slid out of sight, and relief flooded through Draco. Clutching a stitch that pounded painfully in his side, he staggered through the passage and out of the way of the Gryffindors, who followed hot on his heels. The door shut behind them and melted back into a solid wall.

The others faded back into view, and Draco took off the Cloak, panting hard. He’d expected it to stifle him, but air seemed to flow through the fluid material somehow. He let it flow over his hand, studying it with narrowed eyes. He would never tell Potter, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen the Cloak’s equal, and Borgin and Burke’s kept an entire rack full of Invisibility Cloaks fully stocked. It must have been a brand-new Cloak. Maybe they’d even bought it for this Horcrux hunt.

Once he’d caught his breath, Draco let himself look around the common room. The sight overwhelmed him in a way he hadn’t prepared for; he felt a bittersweet rush so strong he could practically taste it. His eyes roved first onto the sofa in the corner, the spot that was his, Crabbe’s, and Goyle’s, where they’d spent countless afternoons listlessly trying to do homework, mostly failing, and winding up making fun of their teachers until their sides hurt from laughing. Then there were the intricate engravings around the dark stone fireplace, where Pansy had leaned the first night they’d kissed, fourth year. He remembered the way she’d looked at him through her dark eyelashes as if she knew everything he didn’t, but that was just Pansy. Her lips had been as soft and yielding as flower petals and in truth neither of them had known what they were doing at all. They’d broken apart after a few minutes just to snicker about it together.

With a lump sticking hard in his throat now, Draco looked up to the light, to the bank of long, greenish windows. The afternoon he’d taken his first O.W.L., he’d curled up where the sun shone through the lake water, in that far windowsill whose stone was slightly curved like a hammock, and he’d listened to the other Slytherins’ voices drifting cheerfully around the common room as he’d fallen into a well-needed nap. Nobody had disturbed him. He’d been worried about things like grades, then. These remnants of a normal life felt almost ridiculous, now, like a clichéd storybook he’d read in childhood.

He couldn’t pinpoint when that world had slipped out from beneath him. For a while, he’d blamed Potter for the whole thing, for his father’s disgrace in the Department of Mysteries, but even before that, there had been transformations, hadn’t there? Yes, looking back, he could see the signs. Until the end of fourth year, his parents had written him twice a week when he was at school, keeping him up to date with happenings at the Ministry, international Wizarding news, and any major financial moves either of his parents were considering. But over the course of fifth year, their letters had dwindled to once weekly, then once every two weeks, then once a month. They sounded distracted and vague in writing, and when he came home for the Christmas holidays that year, they made him stay in his room whenever other Death Eaters came to the manor. He’d hated that, being treated like a child, until the night he’d heard screaming coming from down the hall. He couldn’t remember what he’d told himself to explain it, but he must have made up some story, something to fit with the predestined trajectory of the rest of his life. He must have told himself that person deserved it, and that he would never scream that way, like he was afraid, because he would never fail, because he was his father’s son—so what was there to fear.

They’d all caught their breath, now. “This won’t buy us much time,” Potter said. “If they tell Snape they lost us in the dungeons, he might check here.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a secret Slytherin way out of the castle?” Weasley said. “Just in case you lot wanted to turn tail and flee?”

Draco didn’t dignify that with a response.

Granger was frowning. “If we were in Gryffindor Tower, we would be able to summon brooms and go out the window.”

“Very useful,” Draco said. “Let’s open one of those—” He gestured lazily at the windows— “and flood the school, shall we?”

Potter and Granger didn’t immediately answer. They were both studying the windows as if they were actually considering it.

“How deep do you reckon this is?” Potter said.

“The light’s relatively clear,” said Granger. “And the dungeons go much deeper than this. It can’t be more than fifteen or twenty feet.”

“The lake’s not that bad,” Potter said. “The merpeople are a bit weird, but they’re all right, really. Hermione, do you think you could do that Bubble-Head Charm that Cedric and Fleur used for the Second Task? It’s only just above O.W.L. standard, I think.”

“Let me see if I have it.” Granger sat on the arm of one of the black leather sofas, took out her beaded bag, and began rummaging around in it.

“Hold on,” said Weasley, “how _are_ we supposed to stop the place from flooding, though? Not that I’d mind giving the Slytherins a bit of a surprise, but—”

“We’re not flooding this room,” Draco said through gritted teeth. “You are not touching this place.”

Weasley looked at him with slight surprise, but didn’t say anything.

“No, no, of course we won’t flood it,” said Granger, sounding distracted, still pulling endless books out of her beaded bag and somehow feeding them back into its tiny aperture. “Hold on … ah, here it is!” She’d extracted a book called _Adventurer’s Charms for the Wild_. “I tried a few of these charms for our O.W.L. … hopefully the Bubble-Head Charm is a derivative of one of them.”

As she paged through the book, Weasley settled on another sofa, scuffing his shoe against the vast Persian rug that spanned most of the common room. “I still don’t understand how they knew we were here,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Potter.

Draco turned slightly away from them. He’d expected this. Here it came: they were going to accuse him of bringing the Death Eaters here, either accidentally or purposefully. And when he tried to defend himself by asking _why_ he would summon Death Eaters only to help them escape, they would accuse him of getting cold feet at the last second, the same way he’d failed to kill Dumbledore. He could hear every word of the imagined argument. His heart was beating too quickly, anger and defensiveness building up in him just from the thoughts.

But Potter spoke in a quiet, worried voice. “I couldn’t still have my Trace on me, could I?”

“Impossible, mate,” Weasley said. “It breaks at seventeen, that’s Wizarding law.”

Potter let out a slow breath, and Malfoy realized he’d been worried _he_ was endangering them all. He thought about that ridiculous argument the Gryffindors had in the Room of Hidden Things, each bidding for the opportunity to put on the diadem, to put themselves at risk. He thought about the fear and defiance on Granger’s face as she’d nestled the tiara into her flyaway hair.

He glanced over at Granger now, paging with some enthusiasm through _Charms for the Wild_. With a book in front of her, she looked calmer than she had since the wedding.

She could have died in the Room. He couldn’t understand how she could have made that decision, how she could have forced herself to put on the Horcrux. To him that seemed like the act of someone with nothing left to live for, but hadn’t she also seemed terrified by the idea of Potter and Weasley getting hurt? If she cared about them so much, wasn’t it her responsibility to stay alive, to make sure they all got out of this unscathed? What good was it to die for the people you loved, if you forfeited living for them instead?

“Here!” She looked up and met Draco’s eyes, and he looked away immediately, his heart beating too quickly. He knew he was being stupid, knew she couldn’t see on his face that he’d been trying to puzzle through her thought process. Besides, even if she’d wanted to know his thoughts, he could shut her out immediately. Bella had called him a natural. That memory still comforted him, still made him feel proud. When did Bella ever speak like that about anyone?

“Good news,” Granger announced, shooting to her feet. “It _is_ a derivative of the Clean-Air Charm. I thought it might be.”

Potter looked up from the Marauder’s Map. “Hermione, I think they’re telling Snape. You’ll have to hurry.”

Granger’s excitement turned at once, palpably, to anxiety. She bit her lip, her shoulders bunched up tightly, and her fingers tightened around her wand. Draco threw a disdainful look at Potter. What a stupid move, _telling_ Granger she suddenly had a time limit, when she was so obviously someone who performed poorly under stress.

Draco made a show of yawning and cast a casual look back at the door. “Don’t be stupid, Potter. There’s no reason for Snape to guess we’re here. Yaxley doesn’t even know there’s anyone here but you, and why would _you_ be able to get in?” He glanced at Granger. “No, I think we’ve got ages to watch you bungle this charm, Granger.”

It worked. Her shoulders dropped slightly, and she glowered at him. Some of the fear had gone out of her. “I’m not going to _bungle_ anything,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Weasley, leaping to her defense. “When have you ever seen her mess up a spell, Malfoy?”

“Fine, then. Prove me wrong.” Draco leaned back against one of the limestone pillars set into the wall and folded his arms, giving her an unimpressed look.

Granger sniffed, balanced the book on the back of an armchair, and drew a squiggle in the air with the tip of her wand. “ _Aenai,_ ” she said, and with the second wand motion, a perfect circle traced around her own head, she completed the incantation: “ _Enacerus._ ”

At once, a glassy bubble, thick and iridescent, swelled to life around her head. It couldn’t contain her hair, but when she breathed in, she smiled triumphantly at Draco.

He shrugged. “We all get lucky sometimes, I suppose,” he drawled.

Granger rolled her eyes and went to repeat the charm on Potter and Weasley. Finally, she approached Draco and raised her wand.

He couldn’t help it. He flinched slightly. He wondered if he would ever be able to get rid of the instinct, facing a lifted wand.

Granger’s annoyingly perceptive eyes lingered on his face, then moved down to his right hand, which had jerked ever so slightly toward the pocket where he kept his wand. But she didn’t comment on the motion.

“Ready?” she said, her voice echoing inside the bubble.

He nodded.

She’d barely cast the spell when Potter said, “No, Malfoy, I was right. They’re headed this way.” He and Weasley were both on their feet, their faces distended by the bubbles that surrounded their heads, as well as the one around Draco’s own, which made the whole common room glossy and skewed. The air inside the bubble was cool and refreshing, moving slightly, as if he were outside on an early spring day.

“Fine, then,” Draco said, striding to the window. “How exactly are we going to get out?”

“Banishing Charm,” Granger said, sweeping up her bag. “ _Strata duro!_ ”

Steps instantly erupted out of the wall, leading up to the high windowsill. “Up, go up,” she said. Potter and Weasley darted up the steps, and once they were all crouched on the windowsill, Granger waved her wand again, and the steps collapsed with several loud thuds back into the stone.

Now Draco could hear dull hints of voices from outside the common room.

“You three cast the Banishing Charm,” Potter said. “I’ll cut a way through. All right? … _Now._ ”

Draco, Weasley, and Granger all swept their wands out in an identical motion. The water outside the window bent backward, as if another, much larger bubble were expanding around the window itself. Potter muttered, “ _Diffindo!_ ” and cut a large, square hole in the window, the glass falling inward with a heavy _clunk_ onto the sill between them. “Go,” he said. “Hurry.”

“The Map first,” Granger said. She stuffed it into her beaded bag, which she tapped, whispering, “ _Impervius!”_

Then they crawled out of the window and dived into the lake. There was water all around them, but the Banishing Charm held as they turned back, treading water.

“ _Wingardium Leviosa_ ,” Potter said, his voice faint and distant through the water, and the thick square of glass lifted back into place. With a quick “ _Reparo,_ ” it was mended, as if they had never been there.

Potter looked back at them and nodded. Draco lifted his wand as Granger and Weasley did the same, and the water crashed into place against the window of the common room, tugging them all momentarily back toward the castle. Then they were swimming in the opposite direction, kicking hard upward and outward.

Draco looked back as they swam away. The Slytherin common room’s bank of windows looked ghostly, shedding weak pale light into the dark water. They looked like a memory. Within a minute they had disappeared altogether.

* * *

  
  


They spent that night in the cave in the mountain outside Hogsmeade. The drawback was that it was a cave. The bright side was that it had enough room that Draco could pretend he wasn’t sleeping in the same place as the Gryffindors. They had settled on one side of their fire, and he on the other. They had Transfigured rocks into pillows, leaves into blankets, and through the entrance to the cave, the night sky was a brushstroke of stars.

The moment Hagrid had let them back out through the Gamekeeper’s gate, Draco had wanted to Apparate as far away as possible, but Granger had insisted that they stay here, where they knew they could find covered shelter, and Transfigure themselves tomorrow to buy supplies in Hogsmeade.

“You don’t think that’s incredibly risky?” Potter had said, still shivering from the lake water as he performed a Drying Charm on his robes.

“It’s less risky than anywhere else,” Granger replied. “The place is so full of people, I don’t think we’ll be seen, much less remembered. What’s another couple of guests?”

“Fine,” Draco said. “As long as we contact the Order first thing tomorrow.”

The others had exchanged an exasperated look, which he ignored.

It wasn’t until they settled into the cave that Draco realized how exhausted he was. It seemed impossible that the Burrow and the wedding had been only a handful of hours ago. Yet when he lay down and closed his eyes, rather than falling asleep immediately, he became aware of the Gryffindors’ whispers. They probably thought they were too far away for him to hear, but the arc of the cave ceiling was such that the sound traveled up and over to him.

“Wish the Cloak were a bit bigger,” Potter was saying. “It would be useful.”

“Remember when all three of us could fit under it?” Weasley whispered.

“There was so much room in first year,” Granger murmured. Draco could hear the slight smile in her voice.

 _First year?_ Draco thought, frowning at the wall. Six years for an Invisibility Cloak was into old age. He would have expected the charms to have halfway unraveled by that point, but from the condition of Potter’s cloak, it could have been woven last week.

“It’s going well so far, isn’t it?” Weasley said. “Day one of the quest and we’ve already got a Horcrux. Keep going at this rate and You-Know-Who will be finished by next weekend.”

Granger and Potter’s stifled laughter shivered up and over the cave wall.

“Shame about the fangs,” Potter said. “But we know they’re there. If we don’t manage to get the sword, we can always try coming back to Hogwarts, or getting word to someone at school that we need one.”

There were murmurs of assent from the other two, and then a brief pause.

Then Weasley said, “Look, Hermione, I wanted to … I’m sorry. Both of us are, I mean. We didn’t realize that was what the Spew—I mean, S.P.E.W. thing meant to you.”

Draco’s stomach dropped. He no longer wanted to eavesdrop. He didn’t want to think about the fury and disdain in Granger’s face when she’d demanded to know how he’d treated Dobby, or about the hurt he’d seen in her eyes, even the shine of tears, when she’d mentioned _personal relevance._

And just hours ago he’d been floating across the lake, telling himself she’d never seemed to care when he called her Mudblood, that nothing he’d said had really made any impact, so why did it matter, in the end.

He didn’t want to listen, and yet he found himself training his ears harder than ever. Granger didn’t answer for a long moment, so long that Draco wondered whether he’d missed her reply. But then she whispered back, “I don’t want you to apologize to me. I know you two care about me, so it’s not about that. I didn’t start S.P.E.W. because of how _I’m_ treated, or how Muggle-borns are treated. I started it because we should all care about how everyone’s treated. And sometimes I just wish you would take that a bit more seriously, even when it’s … when it’s …”

“When it’s Kreacher?” Potter said.

“Exactly.”

It was ridiculous, Draco thought. Completely ridiculous, caring to the point of tears about house-elves.

He did have memories of Dobby from before Hogwarts. The elf had scurried around the house wringing his hands and polishing surfaces and punishing himself, and as a child Draco had found it all hilarious: the look of the elf with his batlike ears, and the tea towel he’d had to wear, and the way he’d had to do anything Draco asked, no matter how ridiculous or excessive. Draco remembered enlisting the elf to play make-believe games with him when Crabbe and Goyle weren’t there. He would be the hero, and the elf would be the evil monster encroaching on his territory, and when Draco inevitably conquered the monster, he would order Dobby to do things representing his defeat, like sitting in a closet in the dark for four hours. Draco would go and check on him halfway through just to sit in the strange, weightless feeling of his own control.

Now, he realized, the memories made him feel an uncomfortable twinge. But he shoved that discomfort back. He’d been seven, maybe eight years old at the time. How should he have known that the elf was miserable? How should he have known that the elf could even feel misery? If Dobby had ever let on anything other than enthusiasm and cooperation, his father would have ordered him to iron his hands.

 _Really,_ said a disgusted voice in his mind, _are you going to spend time feeling guilty about how you treated an elf when you were a child?_ After all, if he felt guilty about _Dobby_ , of all things, what was next? Accidentally landing that Katie Bell girl in St. Mungo’s, or poisoning Weasley? Draco had never allowed himself to dwell on those things, because what would feeling guilty have done, exactly? He knew they would get better, or die, whether or not he felt guilty.

Besides, he’d had his own death to worry about. _There were reasons I acted the way I did_ , he thought with a kind of righteous indignation. Was he supposed to feel guilty for prioritizing his own life? Was that what people like Granger wanted, for everyone to prostrate themselves at each other’s feet, never thinking of themselves?

Was that how she’d put on that diadem?

He closed his eyes more tightly, so that strange shadows of polygons erupted on the backs of his eyelids. _Clear your mind,_ said Bellatrix’s voice, training him in Occlumency. Clear everything away. Close yourself to the world, to guilt, to doubt, to shame. He succeeded, except for one thing, which lingered no matter what he tried. Granger’s face as she lowered the diadem onto her head, crowning herself, terrified and defiant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew, y'all, when i say slow burn good lord do i mean it
> 
> [tumbl away with me! :)](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com/)


	7. The Minister's Eulogy

When Hermione woke up, Malfoy was gone.

His absence was the first thing she saw. As she squinted out through the mouth of the cave at a brilliantly blue circle of sky the size of a Galleon, she realized there was no longer a dark shape huddled by the entrance.

No Transfigured pillows. No sheets. No tall body facing purposefully, almost petulantly away from them.

Hermione was on her feet within seconds. _No,_ she thought, hurrying to the entrance as quickly as she could without waking Harry and Ron. Surely Malfoy hadn’t left. Thoughts of the Map and the Cloak occurred to her, but she’d curled up with the beaded bag in her pocket, wanting to ensure that the diadem was protected. When she touched her pocket, the heavy lump was still there, so he couldn’t have taken anything.

She poked her head out of the cave. Hogsmeade lay fifteen minutes’ walk ahead, at the bottom of a rocky, winding path, and already she could see movement in its streets. The funeral was to begin later that morning.

Malfoy was nowhere in sight.

 _He’s gone for a walk,_ she told herself. _That’s all. He’s gone for a walk further up in the mountains to clear his head._

It wasn’t very convincing. He’d wanted to leave ever since they’d arrived the previous afternoon. Had his worry for his parents increased overnight to the point where he’d gone off to find them himself? It wasn’t such a ludicrous idea. He’d betrayed Voldemort for them, after all.

“Malfoy?” she said, not daring to raise her voice too much. She wasn’t sure whether sound echoed in these foothills. “Malfoy—are you there?”

A long moment of nothing but wind.

Hermione was about to reenter the cave when a low voice said, “Why, Granger? Afraid I ran off and gave you away?”

She let out a slow breath and turned toward his voice. “It’s a good thing you didn’t,” she said. “It would have been—”

“—stupid, yeah, I know. Which is why I’m still here.”

Malfoy’s Disillusionment receded, and he faded back into view from foot to crown: the robes wrinkled from sleep, the hands cradling a dark wand, the narrow shoulders slumped against a boulder on the hillside. As his face reappeared from pointy chin to white-blond hair, she looked at him for a moment too long, frowning. She thought he looked different somehow. Less familiar. At Hogwarts, his face, his demeanor, everything about him had been little more than an avatar for her dislike. Now she looked at the scrape on his temple, the one he’d received when he’d knocked her to the ground, and instead of seeing the injury, she felt the collision. She glanced into his colorless eyes, which were cold and bright in the morning sun, and remembered the destabilized look he’d worn in Ron’s room when she’d looked at his Mark.

It was like a kind of facial blindness, she thought, averting her eyes. Parts of him had become invisible to her, or at least inscrutable.

“Right,” Hermione said. “I _didn’t_ think you ran off to hand us in, by the way.”

“Oh, really? Not even a little bit? Didn’t check that bag of yours to make sure I hadn’t taken that Cloak?”

Hermione flushed. “I—that’s not—”

Malfoy let out a humorless laugh. “Thought so.”

“You’d have done the same thing,” she said defensively. “You keep thinking the worst of us, too, when all we’ve done is try to help you.”

He thought for a second, then shrugged, smoothing his hair back into place.

Hermione sighed. This was very productive. “I’m going to go into the village and get our supplies. Tell Harry and Ron where I’ve gone when they wake up, please.”

She set off without waiting for his answer.

By the time she arrived in Hogsmeade, she was fully Transfigured. Her hair was short, fine, and auburn, her skin had lightened considerably, and she’d edited her features to the point that she could scarcely recognize herself in the hand mirror she’d brought. Most of the village’s occupants seemed to be breakfasting at the Three Broomsticks, which had set up an outdoor overflow section that was packed to its edges. Hermione decided to try her luck at the Hog’s Head for a stock of butterbeers and pumpkin juice instead, but even the usually-empty inn was nearly full. When she asked the barkeep for two dozen butterbeers and two casks of pumpkin juice, he glared at her so ferociously that she took a step back.

It wasn’t until he’d slapped his rag down on the bar and stalked into the back of the bar that she realized why her heart was beating so quickly. She knew those eyes, their particular piercing blue. She’d seen them the week before, as Albus Dumbledore had helped her up onto that Thestral.

The barkeep returned, wheeling a small cart. “And how are you plannin’ on transportin’ these, exactly?” he said gruffly as Hermione handed him a palmful of silver. “I don’t have time to push all this around the village.”

“Oh, there’s no need,” she said quickly, crouching. She levitated first the casks and then the packs of butterbeer into her beaded bag, which the barkeep watched with some curiosity. As she straightened up, she went on, “Er, I was wondering—sir, you wouldn’t happen to be … well, related to—?”

“There’s a line behind you, Miss,” he barked.

Suddenly Hermione felt ashamed. This was the day of Professor Dumbledore’s funeral. If this man _was_ related to him, she was reminding him of a dead relative on what was already a painful day. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

He’d leaned over to speak to the next patron before she’d even gotten the words out. Hermione sighed and left.

By the time she’d passed through the lines at the village grocer’s and Honeydukes, some of the visitors were already departing for the Hogwarts grounds. She headed in the opposite direction, back to the turnstile. Once she was a little way into the hills, she stopped to perform some freezing charms on the perishable foods and Untransfigure herself.

She returned to the cave to find an uncomfortable silence. Malfoy was leaning against the wall, arms tightly crossed, looking thunderous. Harry and Ron were muttering darkly under their breath, but when they saw her, their faces brightened.

“Finally,” Ron said. “What kept you?”

“The lines were absolutely ridiculous. I’m sorry, you must all be starving. Here.” She crouched and fished out four full breakfasts from the tiny café that had been attached to the grocer’s. She laid out the plates of soft scrambled egg, thick bacon, and buttered toast, which steamed in the cool air.

Ron let out a soft groan. “Hermione, I love you,” he said as he seized a plate and began to fork the eggs rapidly into his mouth.

Hermione’s stomach performed that leaden lurch again. “Well, I—we didn’t have dinner, so I thought … yes.”

“Thanks,” muttered a quiet voice from her shoulder. Hermione looked up in surprise, but Malfoy was already taking his plate outside.

She watched his retreating back curiously for a moment before settling beside Harry and Ron. “What’s up with him?”

Harry shot a dark look at the mouth of the cave. “He was complaining about how long you were taking, going on and on about his parents. So I told him what I thought his parents could do, for all I care.”

“Oh, Harry, you didn’t.” Hermione sighed and glanced at Ron. “And I suppose you agreed.”

Ron, his mouth full, gave her an incredulous look. “Of cour’f I did,” he said, indistinctly, through eggs. He swallowed and went on. “Hermione, did you forgot Lucius Malfoy tried to kill us all? Actually, _personally_ kill us?”

Harry nodded, an unusually bitter look on his face. “I remember exactly what he said in the Department of Mysteries. I can still hear him saying it. _You can kill the others if necessary._ Like it would have been nothing to kill you two, or Luna and Neville, or—or Ginny.”

“I know,” Hermione sighed. “He’s awful. But there’s no point in needlessly antagonizing Malfoy.”

Ron bobbed his shoulders. “What does it matter? He’ll be out of our hair in a few hours, and good riddance.”

Hermione lowered her voice. “I don’t know, Ron. Have you thought about what we’re going to do if we _can’t_ get him back to his parents?” She hesitated. “I mean, if they’ve been taken to a safehouse that we can’t access because it’s been made Unplottable, or heavily warded, or … or if something _did_ happen to them …”

They ate in silence for a moment.

“Yeah,” Harry admitted. “I was thinking about that when we were in the Room of Requirement yesterday. Also, the Horcrux hunt might actually be safer if he stays here, where we can keep an eye on him.”

“What, in the cave?” Ron said, glancing around.

“No, I mean, with us,” Harry said.

There was a long pause, during which Ron looked from Harry to Hermione with utmost disbelief.

Finally, Ron found his voice. “You’ve got to be joking. You _are_ joking, aren’t you? I’m not wandering around the country with that little rat! Absolutely bloody not. After what he did to Bill?”

“I know, Ron,” Hermione said, trying for a placating tone. “I know it wouldn’t be ideal at all. But … I mean, he _has_ been helpful already. Having someone with such a different perspective than the three of us …”

“We don’t need him to get ideas,” Ron said. “Not now that we’ve got that diadem.”

Hermione considered this, her hand straying to the bag. She knew they ought to be cautious of the Horcrux. She’d read that it was dangerous to get too fond of, or dependent on, a Horcrux; she’d told Harry and Ron exactly that only a few days ago … and yet she found herself thinking wistfully of the clarity it had brought her. It had been so useful yesterday, just when they’d needed it.

“The diadem can’t give us information we don’t have, though,” Harry said.

“That’s true,” Hermione said. “It’s more like a Pensieve: it helps you with your own thoughts, but it can’t give you what you don’t already know. But Malfoy might be able to tell us about the Death Eaters. For Merlin’s sake, his own father was entrusted _with_ a Horcrux. He might have the kind of information that could be really useful to us, even if he doesn’t know it.”

Ron sighed, glancing over to the mouth of the cave. “Yeah, but I don’t …”

A sound interrupted him, making all three of them jump. A distant voice was washing toward them, but with the way it echoed off the walls, Hermione could barely make out a word.

Harry and Ron had whipped out their wands. “What is that?” Harry said.

Hermione held up a hand for quiet, training her ears. She’d heard something recognizable. A name.

“It’s the funeral,” she said softly. “Someone’s giving a eulogy.”

She glanced at Harry, who looked like he’d been jabbed hard in the stomach. He swallowed, which seemed to take some effort, and looked back down at his breakfast. He began to eat mechanically.

Hermione met Ron’s eyes, and Ron gave a tiny shake of his head to signal not to ask Harry how he felt. Hermione sighed, but it was usually best to trust Ron’s judgment on this sort of thing.

They ate for five, then ten minutes, occasional words drifting in from outside. _Undeniable impact … achievements … Wizarding World._ Eventually, Ron replaced his own empty plate on the floor. “You don’t think any of the Order have come to the funeral, do you?” he said uneasily. “I mean, they wouldn’t want the Order meeting each other here, and now that the Ministry’s been taken over, they could just invent some excuse to grab us on sight, couldn’t they?”

“No, you’re right,” Hermione said. “But the Order will know that, too.” Hermione gave Ron a reassuring smile. “There’s no chance your mum would let any of your family come, after yesterday.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.” Ron looked slightly reassured. “Blimey, though—do you reckon You-Know-Who killed Scrimgeour himself?”

“He can’t have done,” Harry said. “He’s abroad.” He had looked up from his plate. “I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

“How do you know that?” Ron said, goggling.

“You know how you heard me talking in my sleep? Saying ‘Gregorovitch’? Well, Gregorovitch is a wandmaker. Krum told me at the wedding. And Vol—”

“ _Don’t,_ ” Ron said.

Harry let out an exasperated sound. “Fine, but listen. _He’s_ after Gregorovitch now. I don’t know where he is, but he’s not in Britain.”

“I don’t understand,” Hermione said, her heart rate speeding. Harry was speaking again with that uncanny, factual tone. “Are you saying your scar showed you this?”

He avoided her eyes, which was confirmation.

“But that connection was supposed to be closed! You shouldn’t be seeing him anymore!”

“That’s not important,” Harry said impatiently. “Hermione, I’m telling you, he’s after wandmakers. This means something. The night I left Privet Drive, the night you … we thought you were …” He shook his head. “Well, I saw him that night, I fought him again, and my wand acted funny, all right? It performed a spell without me. It beat him. And later that night, he tortured Ollivander. He was furious about it. … But don’t you see? He’s already got Ollivander, and now he’s going after Gregorovitch.”

“I … I don’t …” Hermione felt overwhelmed. “First of all, your wand couldn’t have performed a spell _without_ you. That’s just not …”

“I’m telling you, it—”

“You three.”

They all looked up. Malfoy was standing at the mouth to the cave.

“What?” Ron said roughly.

Malfoy jerked his head wordlessly toward the exit.

“We’re not ready to go yet, Malfoy,” Harry said. “A few more minutes won’t make the difference between—”

“It’s not that, Potter. You’ll want to hear this.”

They exchanged glances, then stood and followed Malfoy.

From the path outside the cave, they could see the crowd gathered across the Hogwarts grounds, a sea of black robes. The voice carrying across the water was audible, even crisp, offered up by the lake. Hermione realized immediately that this wasn’t the same voice that had been delivering the eulogy. While that voice had been old and wheezy, this one was younger, more powerful, and flatly nasal.

“… assure you that Dumbledore’s supposed conflicts with the Ministry were invented by opportunistic reporters. Prior to Dumbledore’s death, we were working closely with him to find a path forward for the safety of the entire Wizarding World.”

“ _What?_ ” Harry said.

Hermione hushed him, trying to listen.

“Devoted headmaster that Albus Dumbledore was,” the voice went on, “he believed that the safest course of action for our children was to implement a mandatory attendance policy at Hogwarts School. Here, they can be protected by a score of capable teachers, as well as Ministry-regulated enchantments and wards. In the weeks to come, the Ministry will send registration forms across the country to ensure that every child in Wizarding Britain is accounted for, requesting location and basic demographic information.”

Malfoy made a small noise under his breath. Hermione glanced over at him, but his eyes were fixed on the funeral, and on the tiny figures in black at the front of the crowd.

“Moreover …” The announcer sighed. “We are loath to bring this news to such a somber occasion, but we do so knowing that the Ministry’s immediate and forceful action is imperative in these uncertain times. We are saddened and disturbed to say that our investigation has revealed that Albus Dumbledore’s death was not accidental, as was initially believed. We can confirm that the cause of his death was the Killing Curse. While …”

Sounds from the crowd drifted indistinctly across the lake, though with unmagnified voices, they sounded ten times farther away than the announcer.

“ _While_ ,” he repeated, “we have little information about the circumstances of Albus Dumbledore’s death, we do know that on the night in question, he was accompanied by Harry Potter, an unstable individual who has been followed by mysterious deaths and supposed accidents for years …”

An indistinct cry came out of Hermione’s mouth before she could restrain herself. “No,” Ron roared. Beside them, Harry had gone as rigid as a board.

Hermione rounded on Malfoy. “Who is that?” she demanded. “Who is that, talking?”

“Pius Thicknesse,” Malfoy said. “Used to be Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. They said he’s taken over as Minister from Scrimgeour.”

Thicknesse was still speaking. “… famous for his reappearance at the end of the Triwizard Tournament holding the dead body of a fellow student, Cedric Diggory. Potter was also involved in incidents resulting in the death of one Hogwarts teacher, Quirinus Quirrell, and the permanent memory loss of another, renowned author Gilderoy Lockhart—these incidents being particularly notable for the fact that Potter was only eleven at the time of his involvement with the former, twelve in the case of the latter.

“At fifteen, Potter and several accomplices broke illegally into the Ministry of Magic to steal a valuable, classified artifact, a intrusion that involved several known Death Eaters and resulted in the death of the posthumously exonerated Sirius Black. We have reason to believe that Potter made a similar raid on the Ministry as recently as this week, and only months ago he was nearly expelled from Hogwarts School because of the violent use of a Dark curse on a fellow student, which nearly resulted in yet another death.”

Hermione’s fingernails were biting into her palms. Were they talking about the Sectumsempra incident?

“How did they know—” Ron began.

“Snape,” Harry said dully. “Snape told them all this. How to frame it. Everything.” He let out the most humorless laugh Hermione thought she had ever heard. “Pretty good case against me, isn’t it?”

Hermione was so angry that she could hardly shake her head. How _dare_ they use Sirius’s death against Harry? And Cedric? After everything Harry had been through, everything he’d had to endure, to hear these cruel, evil people twisting it all …

“Harry,” she said, her voice shaking, “it’s not a … nobody with any sense will believe …”

But Thicknesse’s speech had ended, and Harry was already stalking back into the cave. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “We’re wasting time.”

Ron and Hermione exchanged another look. “I’ll talk to him,” Ron said in a low voice.

Hermione nodded. She knew she wouldn’t be much consolation to Harry, anyway, with her fists balled up and trembling in rage, well aware that the crowd was likely full of people who would buy every foul word out of Thicknesse’s mouth. She couldn’t lie to Harry in this state.

As Ron followed Harry into the cave, Hermione shot a look over at Malfoy. He was still watching the scene across the water. She followed his eyeline and saw it, too. The service had come to a close, and a long, white object had formed, gleaming, at the front of the crowd.

Even from here, she could tell that it was a magnificent marble tomb, glowing like fire in the summer sun.

Hermione stared into the white spot and felt her rage evolving into a furious kind of yearning, which hurt as badly as if some soft tissue in her was ripping. Only then did she realize how much, exactly, she wished everything were different. She wished she had urged the Thestral forward at just the right time to save Dumbledore. She wished that Scrimgeour had held on for one more day, and that they were sitting in that crowd, able to say goodbye. She wished the path before them did not look so long and full of thorns.

Then a sound broke across the water. It was the high, tuneful cry of a phoenix, majestic and yet filled with the ache of loss, or maybe majestic because of the penetrative force of the feeling. It was the sound of the ache that unfolded colorfully in Hermione’s chest like the petals of a flower or a catastrophic bruise. As the lament soared upon the air, something red and gold streaked across the blue sky like a brand, and Hermione’s breaths began to stutter as she watched Fawkes’s trail fade, this last bright thing that remained of the Hogwarts, and the life, that she had loved. She thought of her parents’ excited faces in Diagon Alley, and the four-poster beds in the girls’ dormitory, and the dusty smell of the library, and Harry and Ron laughing with her on the lawn, and her cheeks were suddenly wet and hot; she was making small sounds. Malfoy half-turned toward her, but she didn’t shield her face. She didn’t feel that any of it was meant for hiding. She wrapped her arms around herself and felt her diaphragm jerk, felt her ribs hold hard around her heart, felt her body somehow containing it all.

As the phoenix song reached its crest, she found herself looking over at Malfoy. He had turned back toward the white tomb, or maybe toward Hogwarts itself. His lips were parted and he looked discomposed. He was breathing like someone who had run very quickly away from something indescribable. He looked younger.

The lament faded. He turned his face and met her eyes, and Hermione had no idea what to say. There was a long moment of silence like the moment between the casting of a spell and an explosive impact. She physically could not break it. Instead she lowered her head by a matter of small degrees. He did the same.

Five minutes later, they had Apparated away with the others, and Hermione knew they would never speak about it. It was sealed off in the past like the rest.

* * *

_Crack._

They were in a small but luxurious office. Papers were piled high on two identical desks, and behind them, two identical people leapt to their feet with a shout.

Draco turned to the windows and flicked his wand. The curtains slammed together, blocking out the bright sunlight. Potter did the same to the door, which swung shut, concealing the plaque that said: _Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes: Fred & George Weasley, Owners_.

The twins’ shock didn’t last long. They leapt onto their brother first, wrapping him in a fierce hug. Then they moved on to Harry and Hermione, clapping their backs, looking them over for injuries. They gave Draco a glance and a grudging nod, and he nodded back unthinkingly, still feeling unsteady from the phoenix song.

“You four seem all right,” said George, sounding impressed. “Got away from the wedding okay, then, did you?”

“Didn’t you?” said Ron.

“We stayed,” Fred said. “Didn’t want to leave the family, but they’re all fine.”

“The Death Eaters saw the ghoul,” George said. “You did a decent job on it, too. They didn’t want to get within ten feet of the thing. Disgusting.”

“Cheers,” Ron said.

“What about everyone else?” said Granger anxiously. Her face was still red, her eyes puffy and swollen.

“Well, they interrogated us all, didn’t they,” said Fred. “For a few hours.” At the look on her face, he added hastily, “Not outright torture, or anything. There was a lot of threatening, and George got a smack for being mouthy, but he deserved that. Idiot.”

George grinned. “In my defense, he _did_ look like a hairless cat tried to breed with a potato.”

Draco finally found his voice. “What about my parents? Did they go to Shacklebolt’s?”

“Shacklebolt’s?” Fred said. “Malfoy, the Death Eaters saw Kingsley on a broom with me the night we got Harry out of Privet Drive. They know he’s at least adjacent to the Order. Now that the Ministry are at the Death Eaters’ beck and call, he’s being raided and questioned with the rest of us.”

“Tonks evacuated your parents,” George said, “after she got Hagrid out. She was quick on the mark, I’ll tell you that. Took her about fifteen seconds total.”

“And?” Draco said impatiently. “Where are they? A safehouse?”

Fred sighed. “Haven’t we already said that none of our safehouses are safe anymore? Death Eaters smashed up every Order-connected house in the country yesterday. She won’t have taken them anywhere we know, but she didn’t come back to the Burrow, anyway, so we’ve no bloody idea.”

“You … you _don’t know?_ ” His voice was rising now. “Then how am I supposed to get to them? Where is she? Tonks? How do I talk to her?”

Fred shook his head, something like pity in his expression. “You’re not listening, Malfoy. Tonks, Kingsley, and our dad are the only Order members left who still work at the Ministry, and she’s got a kid on the way with Lupin, who is—oh, right—another known Order member. They’re going to be watched every single second of every day.”

Draco felt as if a cold cloak had fallen over his shoulders. He saw, again, the image of his Polyjuiced parents scanning the crowd at the wedding frantically, looking for him. Now they were gone. He had no way of finding them, no way of knowing whether they were safe, no way of communicating to them that _he_ was safe. His mother was probably going mad with worry.

For some reason, he found himself glancing toward Granger. She was watching him with what he now recognized as concern. It was the same way she’d watched Potter during Thicknesse’s speech.

Draco looked quickly away, staring down into the elegant rug, trying to think of some plan, some other way through this. For Merlin’s sake, he’d figured out a way to sneak Death Eaters into Hogwarts under Albus Dumbledore’s watch. Surely he could solve this.

“Hang on,” Ron said, though Draco hardly heard him. “Are you saying … but it sounds like you’re saying the Order is finished.”

“Not exactly,” said George. “Those of us who are still pretending to be respectable members of our new Death Eater-led society—” He straightened his dragon-skin jacket— “need to keep up appearances, true. But we’ll find ways to wreak a little bit of mayhem. Hopefully we’ll spread the truth to as many people as possible.”

Fred shrugged. “And if they catch us at it—well, _when_ they catch us, can’t last forever—then we’ll go on the run. We’ve got bags packed already, in case. Hopefully we can regroup with other Order members somewhere and form a proper underground resistance.”

George sighed. “The risks are high, though. The Death Eaters who went round Tonks’s parents’ place weren’t … well, they weren’t as gentle as ours were with us.”

“Not as gentle?” Potter said sharply. “What happened to them?”

“The Cruciatus, of course,” said Fred.

Draco’s mouth grew dry. His hand, which was curled loosely around the wand in his pocket, tightened on the weapon. A tingling feeling swarmed over his body as if ants were scurrying over every inch of his skin. He felt the wooden floor against his back. He heard his mother screaming out. _A taster,_ said the Dark Lord with displeasure.

Ron swore loudly. “Are they all right?”

“We don’t know,” George said. “It’s going to be hard to communicate from now on. No one’s going to risk Patronus Messengers anymore. The Death Eaters promised they’d be coming through to check on us at random. They did this place three hours ago—made us burn every bit of merchandise mentioning You-Know-Who. Oh, yeah, speaking of which—that reminds me. You four are absolute bloody idiots.”

“Spectacular boneheads,” George added.

“World-class prats with Flobberworms for brains,” Fred agreed. “What in the name of Merlin do you think you’re doing, Apparating into the most high-profile Order-connected building in Britain with no warning?”

Draco’s hand was so tight around his wand now that he thought he might break it. The twins were right. This had been an idiotic decision. From now on they would need to Apparate only under Potter’s Cloak, or Disillusioned, at the very least.

The thought alarmed him. _From now on …_ was he really going to _stay_ with these three? Potter, the most wanted man in Britain, and his cronies?

But what else was there for him to do? The farther from the Order he went, the farther he went from his parents. Surely Tonks would find a way to tell other Order members where they were? Surely Potter, Granger, and Weasley would come back into the fold of the Order during their mission? If he broke away from them, he might be safer, but without his parents, what would the point be?

“We didn’t just come here for a chat,” Potter said, his cheeks coloring. “We need your help.”

The twins’ faces grew serious, suspicious. “Hang on,” George said. “Are we finally going to learn what exactly you three have been up to all summer?”

“Mum was apoplectic,” Fred said. “We got a good fifteen minutes of shouting about you at the wedding.”

“Thanks for that, by the way,” George added. “Good distraction from the fact that we’d transfigured the cake topper into a ‘Happy 78th Birthday’ candle.”

Ron snorted. Potter didn’t crack a smile. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but we can’t tell you what we’re doing. It’s safer for you if you don’t know.”

“Safer for _us_?” Fred said indignantly. “We, may I remind you, are two years _older_ than you three.” He glanced at Draco. “…you four.”

“We’re not trying to be stoic heroes, or anything,” Ron said quickly. “I swear. We’re just doing what Dumbledore told us.”

The twins’ scowls faded. They exchanged a long look, then let out a sigh in unison.

“Fine,” said Fred.

“What is it?” said George.

“The Scavengers’ Guild,” said Potter. “Where can we find them?”

“The—” Fred looked nonplussed. “What do you need them for?”

“We’re …” Potter traded a helpless glance with Granger and Weasley. “Trying to, er, to find something.”

“If you want potentially illegal objects of a malodorous nature,” George said, “why don’t you just ask Mundungus?”

“They can’t ask Dung,” Fred pointed out. “He’s disap—”

“ _Mundungus!_ ” Granger gasped.

Draco jumped. The others all turned to face her.

“Sorry,” she whispered, her hands over her mouth. She was staring at Potter. “Harry, you … do you remember when we saw him in Hogsmeade last year? What he was holding?”

Draco had no idea what she was talking about, but both Ron and Potter were gaping now, too.

Potter pulled himself together and spun back around. “How do we find Mundungus?” he said.

“That’s what I was just saying, mate,” Fred said with mild exasperation. “He’s disappeared. Gone underground. No one’s seen him since we pulled you out of Privet Drive last week, and we were supposed to have a delivery from him on Monday, and another on Wednesday. He’s never missed a delivery before.”

“Cowardly git,” George muttered.

“Unprofitable git,” Fred added.

“He can’t be gone,” Potter said, sounding panicked. “Why? Where’s he gone?”

Fred shrugged. “No idea. Abroad, probably.”

“ _Abroad?”_

“Yeah,” George sighed, “but it’s obvious why, isn’t it? He ran off that night we picked you up. I bet he thinks we’ve all tapped him as a double-crosser.”

“I’m still not convinced it wasn’t him,” Fred said darkly. “I never had a problem with Dung before, but he’s not … well, there’s not much _there,_ if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” George said. “Without the Order’s protection, and Dumbledore gone, and Mad-Eye dead on his watch … what’s keeping him? Dung’s out for himself. He’s got no family. No real friends, far as I can tell. Bit sad, honestly. It’s no wonder he’d want to vanish.”

Draco thought he felt Ron casting him a glance, but when he sent a sharp look back, the redhead was looking at his brothers. Draco felt a mutinous heat in his chest. He had nothing in common with some filthy thief. Draco didn’t want to go abroad because he was a coward, he was just a pragmatist. For that matter, he didn’t even really _want_ to go abroad, he was being forced to by circumstance, and moreover, he _hadn’t_ gone abroad yet precisely because he _had_ family and friends, so Weasley could take his incorrect analogies and choke on them.

Footsteps creaked on the hardwoods out in the hall. They all froze.

“Shit,” George whispered. “Fred!”

Fred nodded, leapt toward Draco and Ron, and seized them by the arms as George did the same to Granger and Potter. The twins turned on the spot, and with a _crack,_ they all Disapparated, reappearing in a room of the same dimensions, built from the same dark wood. Draco had the sense they’d only gone to another part of the same building. They were standing in a parlor of some kind, stuffed with the flashy, slightly gaudy furniture of someone who had suddenly obtained a large amount of gold and had no idea how to spend it properly. A line of photos of various Weasleys told him that the twins had taken them to their flat.

“What are you two doing?” Ron said, looking from Fred to George. “Why are we here?”

Fred was scribbling something with a peacock feather quill on a piece of parchment, while George was pulling a trunk down from a wardrobe and taking from it a scarlet bundle of cloth and pins.

“We’re telling you,” said Fred urgently, “it’s not safe here for any of you. Anyone could be out there. Here, Harry—this is how to find the Scavenger’s Guild.” He handed the piece of parchment to Potter.

George shoved the cloth bundle into Ron’s arms. “Our tent. We were going to use it ourselves, but we can get a new one anytime. You take this one and get out of Diagon Alley.”

“Out of London,” Fred said firmly.

“Thanks, you two,” Potter said. “We owe you.”

Draco heard the footsteps on a staircase nearby and hastened toward Potter and Granger, who had already linked arms. Ron’s face was strained. The youngest Weasley looked like he wanted to hug his brothers, or say something, but the twins must have seen it, because they backed away as one and hissed,

“Go.”

“ _Now_.”

“See you soon,” Ron said, sounding slightly strangled.

Draco took Granger’s arm, and Ron took Potter’s, and there was a knock on the door just before they vanished with a _crack._

* * *

They appeared in a forest clearing and disentangled their arms.

“I’m sure that wasn’t anything dangerous,” Potter said to Weasley at once. “When have you ever heard a Death Eater knock politely?”

“Yeah,” said Weasley, nodding. “Yeah. I know, mate. It’s all right.”

“Where are we?” Malfoy asked, glancing around the glade. “Is this …”

“The forest where they held the Quidditch World Cup, yes,” said Granger, already walking around the clearing in a large circle and flicking her wand so that shimmering patches appeared in the air, like heat.

Draco shifted uncomfortably. Why had she taken them here? Had she meant to remind him of how they’d all met the night of the Cup, when his father had gone out to march? He could only remember bits and pieces of their conversation. Mostly he remembered watching the march from the edge of the forest, hearing people scream as their tents were blown away. He remembered the way he’d felt, looking on. At the time he’d thought the feeling was amusement, or exhilaration, but in retrospect he realized he’d just felt safe, that was all. Other people were in danger, but not him. He’d been in the trees, tucked away in the dark, and he knew that even if any of the marchers found him, he was a Malfoy, and they’d blow past him, maybe even nod deferentially to him. He was above danger.

“Why are we here?” he said.

Something must have shown in his voice, because Granger glanced back at him. “No reason,” she said. “It was the first place that came to mind. Why did you think?”

He shrugged. “Just asking.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“Keep squinting at me like that, Granger,” he said, “and I might start mistaking you for that hideous cat of yours.”

“Not your best line, Malfoy,” she said, turning back to the edge of the clearing and flicking her wand again. “Losing your touch?”

“Oh, I’m so _sorry_ for not being at my wittiest after spending the night in a _cave_ ,” he said sourly.

She laughed. Actually laughed, a clear, bright thing he’d never heard in conversation with her before. “Witty?” she said. “Is that what you think you are, usually?”

He sneered at the back of her head. “Well, I’d forgive you for not recognizing wit when you see it, the sort of company you keep.”

“Malfoy,” said Potter, “are you planning to do anything useful at all?”

Draco looked back. Weasley and Potter were nearly done pitching the tent.

“What’s my incentive, exactly?” Draco said.

Weasley and Potter scowled in unison and flicked their wands. The spine of the tent sprang up into place, giving it roughly the shape of a small cottage with a gable. It was silken, crimson, and obviously expensive, although—like the rest of the twins’ possessions—it was rather tasteless, too, with golden tassels hanging off it and gold thread splattered all over its walls, like a Gryffindor lion had thrown up on it. Draco didn’t even want to think about what his father would have said, knowing he was going to sleep in a place like this.

Weasley ducked in and let out a low whistle. “Harry, Hermione, come look at this.”

“Oh, don’t mind _me_ ,” Draco said to the clearing at large as Granger went in after Potter. “Please, by all means, continue to ignore _me_.”

No answer, so Draco indulged in a roll of his eyes and slapped open the tent flap to follow the others inside. The tent opened up into a comfortable sitting room with a long, plush sofa and two leather armchairs, glimmering floorboards, and a wizarding wireless perched on a mantel, again decorated proudly with Weasley photographs. Every other surface was cluttered with Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes products, designs, or test merchandise. As Draco walked through a kitchen with a large iron stove, he glanced down at several sketchbooks that the twins had left open on the oaken table. The pages were covered with scribbled ideas, each twin’s handwriting annotating the other’s:

_hot air balloon blowing gum?  
—dunno if we want to be a Drooble competitor  
—landing in Honeydukes could be great though_

_pocket hang gliders of some kind?  
—maybe. could make them a craft, foldable hang gliders like paper aeroplanes?  
—do you think we need to know how an aeroplane works to charm something like this  
—could always ask dad  
—NO_

_Firecracker chewing gum  
—good one! murtlap for injury reduction here!  
—no you prat how do you think that would taste  
—let’s hear your idea then_

Draco found his mouth twitching, threatening a smile. Before one of the Gryffindors could see, he sidled into one of the bedrooms. It had a four-poster much like the beds in the Slytherin dormitories, though hung with red and gold drapes rather than green and silver. Sunlight cascaded through a bank of French windows spelled into the wall and lit up the bed’s crisp sheets, which poured over a king-sized mattress.

“There’s beds for all of us,” Weasley called from somewhere else in the tent. “They’ve got a spare room.” He let out a disbelieving laugh. “I don’t even want to imagine how rich those two would be if they’d opened that shop _without_ a war going on.”

After packing the twins’ belongings into various trunks, drawers, and dressers and unpacking some of Granger’s things from the beaded bag, they returned outside to eat lunch. It was a glorious summer’s day, warm enough that they all discarded their outer robes in dark pools on the grass and rolled up their shirtsleeves.

Draco was torn between whether to join them or to eat somewhere else. On one hand, he didn’t want any of them to think he actually liked them. On the other, it was boring to eat alone, and it would probably look petty, if not outright ridiculous, to sit elsewhere in the clearing. He split the difference by sitting in their circle, but facing mostly away from the others, as if he were only there to admire the trees.

While they ate their tomato soup and sourdough bread, the others talked about the Quidditch World Cup, mostly. Draco, again, felt torn. At one point, Weasley and Potter were arguing over what the most exciting goal scored by the Irish side had been, and they were obviously forgetting the spectacular Khushk Return that Troy had pulled off in the twelfth minute. If it had been Crabbe and Goyle, Draco would have interjected and recounted it in blissful detail, but the idea of enthusing about Quidditch with these three felt deeply wrong.

“I thought the congregation aspect of it was very interesting,” said Granger. “I mean, what other chance do we have to gather on such a large scale? I wish we’d been able to meet some more people from other countries.”

“Mm,” Weasley grunted. “I think we met plenty of people from other countries that year.”

Granger turned red, and Draco realized what Weasley was talking about. He remembered Granger walking down the Grand Staircase at the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum, her hair held back from her face and neck, her blue dress robes seeming to float around her. He and Pansy hadn’t been able to have a proper conversation for ten minutes after that. When they’d tried to make fun of Granger, it was all jabs about Krum’s taste that felt stupid even to say, so eventually they’d just left it and gone off to find the others.

Once their bowls were empty, the talk of the Cup came to a coda.

“So,” Weasley said. “What’s our plan?”

Draco angled himself slightly more toward the group.

“We need the sword to get rid of that diadem,” Potter said. “But how are we supposed to find out where the Ministry is keeping it?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Granger said. “And I don’t think the sword is at the Ministry anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t you hear what they said during that speech? When they were talking about all the things you’d supposedly done?”

Potter’s expression darkened. “It was hard to miss, Hermione.”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “I mean, they mentioned the Department of Mysteries, but then, right after that, they said, ‘ _We have reason to believe he made a similar raid on the Ministry as recently as this week_.’ And I thought, well, that’s a funny lie to make up, especially since the rest were all things that _had_ happened, but that they were twisting around to cast in a negative light. … But what if they weren’t making it up? What if something _was_ stolen from the Ministry—something with a connection to you?”

Draco felt slightly incredulous. It was one thing to memorize lines out of textbooks—did Granger also remember every word she’d ever heard anyone say?

“But that’s even worse,” Weasley said. “If someone nicked the sword, and we don’t know who, that puts us even farther away from getting our hands on it.”

Draco shook his head. “Better than the Dark Lord having it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Weasley said. “How do we know it wasn’t a Death Eater who nicked it?”

“I don’t think so, Ron,” said Granger. “If it were with a Death Eater, it wouldn’t have seemed like a problem to Thicknesse, would it?” She bit her lip. “I think Malfoy’s right. Maybe we’re farther away from the sword, but at least we know it’s not about to be turned into another Horcrux. That’s something.”

“ _Do_ we know, though?” said Weasley. “I mean, it’s a great theory, Hermione, but it’s not exactly solid proof, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” said Potter.

“You’d better hope she’s right,” Draco said. “What’s your alternative, if the sword’s still there? Rush the Ministry to do exactly what they just warned a thousand people you’d do?”

“We could figure out a way,” Potter said, glowering at Draco.

Draco shrugged. “Yeah, sure. And how long will that take? A month? If the Death Eaters haven’t already realized Dumbledore’s things are sitting around the Ministry, his funeral’s sure to remind them. It’ll be gone by tomorrow, if not sooner.”

“We could use the diadem,” Granger said.

They all hesitated, looking at Granger’s beaded bag, which lay on the grass between them. When no one objected, she reached in, extracted the diadem, and placed it on her head.

As it had yesterday, the diadem seemed to smooth out all the fine lines of worry on Granger’s face. Draco wondered if the famously vain Ravenclaw had put some kind of glamour on it, too, because with the delicate tiara on her brow and her eyes closed, the tumult of her hair lit from behind by the afternoon sun, Granger suddenly looked … well, much more like the girl at the Yule Ball.

“Any brainwaves?” Weasley asked.

Granger didn’t answer. Another minute passed before she opened her eyes.

“I don’t think there’s anything we’re missing,” she said. “No obvious connections or little shortcuts like the Basilisk fangs. As for ways to enter the Ministry, I think most of those scenarios would require both a batch of Polyjuice and a huge amount of planning. I think it really is our best chance to hope that someone else has taken the sword.”

“Great,” Weasley said grumpily, lying back on the grass and staring up at the fluffy white clouds.

“That speech,” Potter said, frowning. “There were parts of it I don’t understand. Mandatory attendance at Hogwarts? What was all that about?”

“Demographic information,” Draco said.

They all looked at him.

“They said the registration forms would include _basic demographic information,_ ” Draco said, pulling several blades of grass out of the ground and peeling the long green strands apart. “That means blood status. If you mark down half-blood, there’ll be lines for you to list your parents’ blood status, and if you mark down Mudb—” He broke off. There was a short but intensely uncomfortable pause. “Muggle-born,” he muttered, “then, well. They’ll know, won’t they.”

When he glanced up at the others, they all looked slightly stunned.

“What?” he snapped at them.

Potter and Weasley looked away immediately. Draco glanced at Granger, who was wearing that surprised, curious look she’d worn in Weasley’s room, when she’d seen his Mark. The surprise, he realized, was that he hadn’t hurt her.

To his immense irritation, he felt his cheeks grow slightly hot. He sneered at her, more for something to do with his face than anything else, and looked back down at the grass in his palm, tearing it apart more vehemently.

“Is this a plan you heard them talking about?” Potter said. “Last year?”

Draco let out a derisive laugh at that. It was a relief to let out some of the tension. “God, Potter, you really think they let me hear anything important last year? I was supposed to die killing Dumbledore. Dumbledore is a Legilimens. Put it together.” He threw away the destroyed palmful of grass. “That’s why Bellatrix wanted me to learn Occlumency, I suppose, but if Dumbledore had really _wanted_ to get anything out of me, he could have.” He shook his head. Now that he thought about it, it was idiotic that Dumbledore hadn’t at least given his mind’s contents a customary look to make sure he hadn’t been lying about everything.

“Then how did you know all that about the forms?” Weasley said.

Draco shrugged. “That’s just … it’s what that means. Demographic information. People are speaking about blood status when they say that.”

“ _I’ve_ never heard that,” Weasley said.

Draco raised one eyebrow. “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t exactly run in the right circles for it, would you, Weasley.”

“Good,” Weasley fired back.

Draco sighed. God, he was so exhausting.

“And, er, what will they do once they know about … about all that?” Potter asked.

“You tell me, Potter. They’re obviously making a list. I don’t know what they’ll do, but I wouldn’t want to be on it. Would you?”

Weasley and Potter both looked at Granger. She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t think it really matters for me,” she pointed out, “as I’m on the run with Harry Potter.”

Potter let out a little laugh. “Fair enough,” Weasley said, seeming slightly reassured.

“Hermione,” said Potter somewhat suddenly. “You’re still wearing the diadem.”

One of her hands rose to touch it. “And?”

“I don’t think we should wear it more than we have to.”

“Harry, I feel fine. If there were a curse on it, it would have been activated immediately.”

“We don’t need it right now, though,” said Weasley, also eyeing the diadem with distrust. “Just put it away, would you?”

“I don’t—”

Draco reached out and plucked the diadem from Granger’s hair.

The moment it left her head, he saw her shoulders slump an inch, and the worry returned to her expression. She blinked rapidly, as if awoken from a trance, and gave Draco an annoyed look. “You didn’t need to do that,” she said rather sharply, snatching the diadem back out of his hand.

Draco didn’t answer, studying her as she replaced the diadem in the bag. There was something a bit too careful about the way she handled it.

Potter hadn’t seen. He was scanning the parchment Fred had given him. “If we don’t have a lead for the sword, then we can try this trail for the locket. It looks like the Scavengers’ Guild comes to Diagon Alley once a month, at the new moon.” He glanced up at the sky. The moon was hanging in the afternoon sky, slightly oblong, like a fingernail. He frowned. “So it won’t be there for a few weeks. … But Fred’s given us a password to get into the back rooms to talk to the Scavengers themselves. He says to bring gold for haggling if it’s information we want.”

Draco turned to face the three of them at last. “All right,” he said. “As it looks like I’ll be dealing with this … this _quest_ of yours until I figure out where my parents are, you may as well tell me what you know. How did you find out about these Horcrux things? What cave were you talking about yesterday?”

The three of them exchanged one of their Looks.

“All right,” Potter said. “We don’t have that much information to go on, but—”

“No,” Weasley burst out.

Three pairs of eyes locked onto his freckled face.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said, “but Harry, I don’t think we should tell him anything else. And Malfoy, once we get an idea of where your parents are, I think you should agree to us performing a Memory Charm on you.”

Draco straightened up. “Excuse me?”

Weasley was unabashed. “You heard me. Then you can go back into hiding and you won’t be tempted to go to You-Know-Who with any of this. I know, I know, Dumbledore said you couldn’t go back because you didn’t do your job. But Dumbledore’s dead now. It doesn’t matter so much that you didn’t do it. Maybe You-Know-Who would take you back.”

“Ron,” Potter muttered, looking uncomfortable, “are you trying to convince him?”

“No, I’m not. But that’s how he’s thought his whole life. He’s stuck with us so far because it’s been convenient. He doesn’t actually care about destroying Horcruxes. He doesn’t actually care about fighting the Death Eaters, or anything that they stand for. Do you?” Weasley said, turning to Draco.

Draco felt completely blindsided. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

“See?” Weasley said. “He won’t even say it! He won’t even lie to save his own neck!”

“Ron,” said Granger quietly. “I don’t know if you’re being fair.”

“ _I’m_ not being fair? To _him?_ ”

“We know the way You-Know-Who treats the Death Eaters,” Granger said, not looking at Draco. “You know what he …” She swallowed and said again, “how he treats them. If you’d had that kind of loyalty drummed into you …”

“But it hasn’t been ‘drummed into’ him, Hermione,” Weasley insisted, “it’s what he’s _chosen,_ his whole life. Look at how he treats Hagrid. Do you remember fifth year? Rita Skeeter? Weren’t you the one who was so livid about it you declared war on that woman? Look at how he treats everybody else. Even his own friends!”

Draco felt a stab of anger. “How do you know how I treat my friends?” he snapped. It was surreal enough that Weasley would sit there and say these things as if he couldn’t hear them, but to be reminded of his friends, whom he might never see again, who thought he was lying in a burial plot—

“Because we have eyes and ears, Malfoy,” Weasley said with an incredulous laugh. “Oh, and maybe because in our second year, Harry and I Polyjuiced into Crabbe and Goyle so we could talk to you without you knowing. That’s how we knew where the Slytherin Common Room was. I mean, Merlin, you’re not even _nice_ to them. Everything you bloody say to them is just a reminder of how great you think _you_ are, how important you think _your_ life is. I never thought I’d sympathize with Crabbe and Goyle, but I don’t know how they put up with you.”

“Shut up,” Draco snarled. “You shut up about my friends, Weasley. I’m warning you.” He was on his feet, looking down at the three Gryffindors. They rose to their feet, too. “Merlin, you’re insufferable. You have one conversation with me in _second year_ and you think you understand—”

“I understand you’ll do anything to save your own neck. And you know what?” Weasley raised his hands. “Fair play. Do what you’d like. Be whatever awful kind of person you want to be. But don’t expect us to trust you.” He let out a humorless laugh. “Do you remember what you said to Hermione last time we were here? You implied she wasn’t even a witch.”

“Ron,” Granger said. “Please, don’t …”

“So, what, you get in over your head and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?” Weasley demanded. “I don’t. You can come with us if you’d like, until you can get back to your parents. But I’m not telling you a word, and—” He rounded on Granger and Potter, who both looked quite taken aback. “—you two can do what you like, obviously, but I think you’d be real idiots to trust him with anything. I’m serious.”

Draco let the silence spiral for a moment. Then he said, “Are you done, Weasley? Feel like a big man now?”

Weasley let out another short laugh. “See?” he said. “Absolutely fucking pointless.”

He stormed off into the tent. Potter followed him immediately, though he sent a somewhat panicked look back at Granger.

Draco stood there in silence with her, waiting for her to follow the others. She didn’t.

“What?” he said roughly. “Trying to think of something to add? I’m pretty sure Weasley covered it all.”

“No, I don’t think he did.”

He looked at her in disbelief. Was she really going to pile on after that?

Then she said, “You—you saved my life at the wedding.”

Draco’s thumping heart seemed to miss a beat.

“And you still have the Mark. You could have brought You-Know-Who here, and I think he might even have forgiven you, if you gave him Harry. But you haven’t. Why is that?”

Draco looked up at the blue sky and wanted so desperately to be alone, or with his parents, who would have known the answers to these questions and accepted them silently, without demanding anything of him.

Granger sighed. “That’s what I was trying to tell him,” she said. “It’s not just incriminating questions that are hard to answer.”

“Granger, I don’t need your charity,” Draco snapped. But even as the words came out, he didn’t know why he was saying them. She wasn’t acting like Weasley. He’d done the same thing that morning, on the mountainside; he’d accused her of suspecting the worst of him, he’d pried it out of her. Was he trying to _make_ her act like Weasley? Was he trying to force a confession, to get her to admit that she would always loathe him, too, that she would never see him as forgivable or even comprehensible?

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, with just as little control. “I didn’t—I don’t know why I said that.”

They looked at each other. He became aware that he had never apologized to anyone in Gryffindor for anything before, had maybe never apologized to any of his classmates.

He pushed his hair out of his eyes. It was getting too long, strands of silver glowing in his periphery all the time. “Do your parents know what you’re doing?” he said. “Do they know you’re doing things like—like putting that _thing_ on your head without even knowing whether it was going to try and kill you? Don’t you think the Death Eaters will come after them the moment you get spotted with Potter?”

“Of course they will,” Granger said. “That’s why I’ve sent them away.”

“That’s … what?”

She weighed the beaded bag in her hand and looked down at her shoes. “I modified their memories. They’ve gone to Australia, and if I don’t break the charm, they won’t come back. They’ll be safe there.”

“You said they were on vacation. When we were in your house, you said—”

“I lied, Malfoy.”

He had to grope for words for several long moments, but when he said, “How could you—” she cut him off.

“Because I had to, obviously.”

“You _didn’t_ have to. You could have given up this insane quest and gone with them.”

“What, and leave everyone else here to suffer what’s happening?” she said, her voice rising. “Harry and Ron and every other Muggle-born in the country? When this _insane quest_ could end it all?”

 _Yes,_ Draco thought. You pick what to care for and you care for it. Leave the rest.

She shook her head. “Just stay away from Ron for the time being. He takes a while to cool off. I’m … I’m going to go talk to him.”

She hesitated at the tent flap, but ducked through without looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally all i ever do is write about eye contact
> 
> me, choosing how to furnish the weasley tent, battling desperately between “the Weasley twins are the most extra people ever to earn thousands of Galleons” and “there was only one bed”: do I follow the guidelines of character clearly laid out in canon or do I follow my heart
> 
> fyi, i'm sending my laptop off to get repaired this weekend because it no longer types the letter s reliably, which, hmm, is a problem. so the next update might be a little late!
> 
> until then <3


	8. The Fidelius Charm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes chapters are really long and we just have no choice in the matter

When Draco came out of the tent the next morning, bleary-eyed and yawning, he found Granger flicking her wand at one of the tent’s stakes, tugging it out of the soft, dark earth.

“Granger,” he said, making her jump, “are you _trying_ to make the place collapse on Potter and Weasley?” He stopped beside her, nudging the small pile of stakes with his toe. “I mean, I understand the instinct, but if you’re interested in killing them both, I’d have thought you’d have done it years ago.”

“You’re very funny,” she said, adding another stake to the pile. All the tent’s extra flaps and decorations were now hanging limp, leaving only the main structure still in place. “We’re leaving after breakfast.”

“What? Why?”

“I think we should stay on the move. Harry and Ron agree. I spoke with them about it yesterday evening.”

“Oh, you did, did you? So I don’t get a vote?”

“Stop pouting, Malfoy. You’d have been outvoted anyway.”

He glared at her. “I am not _pouting._ ”

“You pout constantly.”

Well, _that_ was just—she was just being ridiculous. Draco let out a loud scoff and stalked back inside to make breakfast.

He was vindictively buttering his toast when Granger came back inside and let out a surprised little “Oh.”

“What?” Draco said, glancing over his shoulder.

She was standing in the open flap with the armful of stakes, looking surprised but gratified. “Thank you. I was going to do it, but now I’ll have time to clean the bathroom before we leave.” She aimed a small, confused smile at him as she placed the stakes on an end table and headed toward the bathroom. “I left the sausages in my bag, by the way. It’s on the sofa.”

He frowned. “I’m n—”

She was already closing the door.

Draco mouthed wordlessly at the door for a moment. He hadn’t been making breakfast for the Gryffindors. He wasn’t their butler, for Merlin’s sake.

But now, if Granger emerged to find that he _hadn’t_ made breakfast for all of them, it would look like he’d been trying to make a statement, just to prove her wrong, and from everything he knew about Granger, that would be roughly twelve thousand times more trouble than it was worth.

This day was off to a phenomenal start. Muttering under his breath about presumptuous Gryffindors, Draco greased the skillet and shoved several more slices of bread onto it.

Fifteen minutes later, as the sausages sizzled on the pan, a door opened elsewhere in the flat. “Hermione,” called Weasley’s voice, “it smells amazi—”

Potter and Weasley came out from the short hallway and stopped dead at the sight of Draco, who was forking a dozen sausages onto a platter.

“Er,” Potter said, looking downright alarmed.

Draco set the platter of sausages beside a stack of buttered toast, dropped a fistful of cutlery on the table, and sat down to eat. After several more seconds of Potter and Weasley making no move to sit down, he said, “It’s not _poisoned.”_

“R-right,” Potter said, sitting down with Weasley. Draco wondered darkly whether Granger had planned all this to get out of cooking.

That particular theory fizzled when she emerged a second later, flushed and frizzy-haired, from the bathroom, wearing a look of utmost disgust. “Do you know,” she said, sitting down at the table, “I think Fred and George were concocting something in that bathtub. I tried three different kinds of Scouring Charms, and that greenish scum is still stuck there.”

“Please, Granger,” Draco said, “do go on about the greenish scum while I’m eating.”

Her lips twitched. She took a dignified bite of toast, but before she could reply, both their gazes were drawn to Potter. His hand had performed a strange movement, leaping toward his brow—which had furrowed in pain—before swerving back down to his fork.

“So,” Potter said a bit too quickly, “any ideas for where to go next?”

Granger’s eyes had narrowed in on Potter’s scar. Draco could tell that Weasley had noticed the movement, too, but Potter took a bite of sausage as if nothing had happened and looked innocently between the three of them.

Weasley seemed to decide it was better not to ask. “Hermione,” he said, “how long until the Scavenger’s Guild comes back to Diagon Alley, again?”

“They’ll be there the night of August 24th,” said Granger, though she was still looking warily at Potter. “And we’ll have to be very careful when we go, because it’s bound to be full of Hogwarts students around that time.”

“Do we have any Polyjuice Potion?” Potter asked.

“No,” Granger said, “but I have the ingredients in my bag. I can start brewing some right away.”

“But that’ll take a month,” Weasley said. “We’ll miss the 24th.”

Granger nibbled on her lip. “I was thinking we could use Transfigurations to visit the Scavengers. It’s not quite as secure—there are some basic detection charms that can reveal Transfigurations—but a stall in Diagon Alley shouldn’t have very intense protection, should it?”

“We should go as soon as possible,” Potter said. “I mean, what if they have the locket now and someone buys it off them?”

“Right,” Weasley said. “Transfiguration it is, then.”

“As for where we’re going next,” Granger said, “we don’t have any real leads on the sword.”

“How about the cup?” said Weasley. “It should still be wherever You-Know-Who left it. We could retrace his steps. What about the or—” He gave Draco a sidelong look. “The place he grew up?”

Potter thought for a moment. “I don’t think he’d have left a Horcrux there. He hated it there.”

“Still,” said Weasley, “maybe we’ll find a trail or something.”

“Could be,” Potter said. “I suppose we might as well look.”

Draco watched them speak with growing resentment. He supposed this was how it would be for the foreseeable future: the three Gryffindors making decisions while he sat there and waited to be dragged around. Also, it was absolutely moronic for Weasley to speak in code around the locations they might go, because he was going to be there eventually, anyway.

Well, if they thought he was going to make all their meals and tidy up after them and wait to be called on to speak, they were mistaken. Draco stood up abruptly, dumped his plate in the sink, and stalked outside, where he tried—with no success at all—to think of places Tonks might have taken his parents.

A couple minutes had passed when Granger ducked out through the tent flap. “What’s wrong?” she said.

“What’s _wrong?_ You mean besides the Dark Lord taking over the Ministry of Magic, my parents being missing, and your Phoenix lot scattering to the winds?”

“Yes. Besides that.” She hesitated. “You walked out on breakfast.”

“I was done eating, Granger. What are you, my mother?”

She bristled. “Well, I just thought you looked angry, but if you want to stand out here being a child, then by all means—”

“I’m not being a child. You three are the ones pretending I’m not _there_.”

She let out a disbelieving laugh. “When, exactly, did we do that? Harry asked if anyone had any ideas for where we should go. That includes you. It’s not our fault you didn’t contribute anything.”

“If anybody had _asked_ me for my opinion—”

Granger let out a heated sigh. “Malfoy, we’re not going to defer to you. We’re not Crabbe and Goyle. If you have an idea, you’ll have to just say it.”

“I didn’t ask you to _defer_ to me,” Draco said. “I’m only—it’s … they didn’t even thank me for making breakfast.”

He felt his face flush. He hated how petty the words sounded. It wasn’t about their gratitude for the food—it was about being treated like a normal person. If Potter and Weasley couldn’t even manage a casual thank-you for a meal, how were they going to survive weeks of being on the run together, potentially dodging Death Eaters and trying to overcome deadly enchantments? What was Draco supposed to do about Potter’s excruciating awkwardness and Weasley’s open distrust—pretend they had no history together?

But Granger wasn’t going to understand what he’d meant. She was going to think he was so infantile that he wanted to be lavished with praise for doing something as simple as making breakfast.

Except that when he looked at her, the annoyance had left her expression. She considered for a long moment before speaking.

“I know it’s uncomfortable,” she said, lowering her voice. “Look, I’m trying, Malfoy, and I know you’re trying, and I … _we_ do appreciate that, all right? They’re trying, too, I promise. I spoke with Ron last night, and he’s—he’s just protective of Harry, but the longer you’re here, and the longer he sees he has nothing to worry about …” She shifted her weight, looking awkward herself. “It’ll get easier.”

Draco opened his mouth and closed it again. He’d already been thinking up vicious retorts, certain that she was going to sneer at him. But she _had_ understood what he’d meant. To that, he found he had no response.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I thought breakfast was really good, so, thank you.”

With that, she went back inside, leaving him looking after her.

Half an hour later, the tent was packed up and replaced inside Granger’s bag, and Weasley and Potter were stretching out the Invisibility Cloak, trying to determine whether they could Disapparate beneath it, and if so, how many of them could manage it.

Granger tapped Weasley on the head, Disillusioning him, and hurried back from him a few paces. “Make a sudden movement, Ron,” she said. “I want to see how much I can see in broad daylight.”

As they performed a few tests, Draco watched the Cloak flow through Potter’s fingers. “That Cloak, Potter,” he said.

“What about it?” Potter said.

“Where did you get it?”

Potter shrugged. “It was my dad’s.”

Draco frowned. His _dad’s?_ But how could it be? Hadn’t Draco pestered Mr. Borgin about his rack of Cloaks when he was a child, fascinated by them, and hadn’t Borgin told him that by ten years old, a Cloak would be very ragged indeed, and that by fifteen, they would be so oversaturated by repair charms that replacement would be necessary?

But before he could ask Potter about it, Potter let out a sharp _‘ah’_ and clapped his hand to his forehead. He seemed unable to control it, or the rest of his body. The next moment, he was on his knees.

“Harry!” Granger and Weasley said together. Granger dived toward him, and so did Weasley’s mostly invisible form. Draco took an instinctive step toward him, too, not knowing what was happening.

“What is it?” Weasley’s voice urged. “What are you seeing?”

“Nothing,” Potter said through gritted teeth. “Nothing. … Nothing new. Voldemort’s looking for Gregorovitch. He …”

_CRACK._

Draco drew his wand instantly. Granger and Weasley leapt to their feet, and Potter staggered up, too, one hand gripping the Cloak, the other still pressed to his forehead. It hadn’t been the sharp, high whip-crack of Apparition, more like the low crack of a fissure forming in a lake of ice.

“What was that?” Granger said, her voice panicked. “What—”

“The protective enchantments,” Potter said.

But now the _crack, crack, crack_ of Apparition _was_ echoing through the clearing. Figures were appearing in the trees.

Draco had made to raise his wand, but at the first sound of Apparition, a light, thin something had landed over him: the Invisibility Cloak. Potter, Granger, and the Disillusioned Weasley were already sending spells whizzing through the air and into the trees. Jets of light were returning toward Potter and Granger, the only two who were still visible. “Protego!” Potter yelled, slashing his wand through the air, and a Stunner rebounded into the trees, rewarded with a strangled cry.

Draco ran to the Gryffindors and seized Potter’s and Granger’s arms. “Get Weasley,” he snapped, and Granger grabbed his wrist.

Draco turned on the spot, and they Disapparated, leaving the sunny clearing behind and reappearing in a copse of evergreen trees. The Cloak slid off him. He grappled it out of the air, looking around at the others. He’d never done Side-Along Apparition before, but they all looked intact, if disorientated.

“How?” Granger was gasping. “How did they find us?”

But she and Weasley were both looking at Potter with dread.

Potter swallowed. “I … you don’t think …”

His hand strayed to his forehead, to the lightning-bolt scar.

They were quiet a long moment. The birds in the trees, which had been startled into silence by their appearance, slowly started to sing again.

“Did it hurt in Hogwarts?” Granger said. “The day of the wedding, when they knew we were in the castle?”

“It … yeah. A bit.”

Granger and Weasley exchanged an alarmed look.

“But it hurts a lot, these days!” Potter added quickly. “I didn’t _see_ anything that day, but I could tell he was happy. I mean, of course he was. The Ministry had just fallen, hadn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?” Draco said, his eyes fixed on Potter’s forehead. “What’s wrong with your scar?”

“It shows me flashes of what he’s up to,” Potter said, “or what he’s feeling. It has done for years. There’s a kind of connection.”

“You mean the Dark Lord is in your head?” Draco took an unwitting step back. “He could know about all this?”

“It’s normally one-way,” Potter said. “There was only once that he … that he got inside …” He shook his head and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Dumbledore thought he wouldn’t try to do it again, it hurt him so badly. It was at the Ministry, end of fifth year.”

“This is bad,” Granger was saying, her voice high and small. “Oh, no, this is very, _very_ bad.”

“It’s all right,” Weasley said, hurrying to her side and putting a hand on her back. Draco watched her tilt her head up toward the crisscrossing pine boughs, blinking quickly, running her shaking hands through her bushy hair.

He caught Weasley’s eye. Weasley, for some reason, had narrowed his eyes at Draco. He looked quickly away from the pair of them.

“But I don’t understand,” Granger said after a moment. “Even if he’s using that connection somehow, how could he have told the Death Eaters where we were from abroad?”

Potter looked sick with worry. He was pacing back and forth over the needles. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, he’s connected with them, too, isn’t he? The Dark Mark makes a link between them.”

Weasley turned to Draco. “Did you feel anything?”

Draco yanked up his left sleeve to look at the Mark. The tissue was red and raised, as usual, but it hadn’t burned black. “It wasn’t a summons,” he said curtly. “But there are things about the Mark I don’t know. The Dark Lord can call only one of us with it, if he needs to, and I don’t know how that works.”

“Of course, that variant of the Protean Charm will be Dark magic,” Granger said. “I don’t know, Harry. If having that charm on his body has opened up some kind of connection between you and the Death Eaters, the same way he’s connected to them … I don’t know whether that’s possible. It could be. It’s just not the sort of thing you’d be able to find in a book.” She bit her lower lip. “And I don’t know why it would only have happened _now_ , when the connection’s been open for years.”

“Never mind the specifics for now,” Weasley said. “What are we supposed to _do_ about it?”

“You three have to leave,” said Potter. His voice sounded dull, almost mechanical, but determined. “If the Death Eaters are tracing me because of my scar, it’s—”

“ _No,_ ” Weasley and Granger said at the same time. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Granger went on. “There’s a way out of this.”

“What?” Potter said.

“Dumbledore already gave it to us. You have to learn Occlumency.”

Potter closed his eyes. “Hermione, in case you’ve forgotten, I learned everything I know about Occlumency from the man who killed Dumbledore.”

“Well, now’s your chance to learn it correctly, then, isn’t it?”

“And how am I supposed to do that, exactly?”

Granger hesitated, but her eyes gave her away. They strayed onto Draco’s.

 _“What?”_ said Draco at the same time as Potter and Weasley.

“Hermione,” Weasley said, his voice straining, “don’t take this the wrong way, but _have you gone absolutely mental?_ ”

“No, Ron, I haven’t!” said Granger hotly. “Even if Harry leaves to try and keep us safe, he’ll be in terrible danger. If they’re finding him because of this connection, Occlumency is the only thing that can stop it, and—and, well, Malfoy, you know how, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Well, there you go, then,” Granger said. Like that settled everything.

“I don’t want him in my head,” Potter said to her.

For some reason, it dug under his skin. Draco rounded on Potter and snarled, “Will you _talk to me when I’m standing right here!_ ”

Potter leapt, making his glasses slide an inch down his nose again. He stared at Draco as if he’d never seen him before. Silence fell over the copse, and Draco breathed hard, feeling the hot prickle in his cheeks that told him he’d flushed pink.

“All right,” Potter said.

Draco tried to calm his breathing. It was almost worse to have Potter look at him after the embarrassing loss of control. Draco felt suddenly hyperaware of the Cloak in his hands—and of the fact that Potter had used that first moment after the Death Eaters’ Apparition to throw the Cloak over him, hiding him from their sight. He remembered that Potter had given him the Cloak in the Room of Hidden Things, too.

He heard Granger’s voice saying, _They’re trying._ He forced himself to look back at Potter.

“I don’t want you in my head,” Potter repeated, his voice level. “I don’t want anyone in my head. I’m not—I don’t like how it feels.”

Draco’s lip curled. “Of course you don’t like it. No one likes it. But if you’re this scared of it, you won’t be able to stop it. I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave.”

“You can be brave and afraid at the same time,” Potter muttered.

There was another silence. Then Weasley, who appeared to have been mulling things over, said, “Malfoy can …” He hesitated, then looked at Draco and addressed him warily. “ _You_ can teach Harry without getting in his head, can’t you? I mean, Hermione or I could … could try doing it, and you can give him advice, or something.”

Draco thought about it for a moment. It didn’t sound enjoyable, but if the alternative was Potter inadvertently summoning Death Eaters every other day …

He jerked his shoulders up irritably. Still, some part of him couldn’t help but feel that if his life depended on Harry Potter’s self-control, he might as well just press his Dark Mark and get it over with.

“Thank you,” Granger said, letting out a long breath. “Yes, Ron, I think that’s a good compromise. Harry, what do you think?”

Potter didn’t look happy. “I still think it’d be safer if you all just …”

“We’re not leaving you,” Granger said. Her voice was low, slightly strangled.

Potter gave her a sidelong glance, an odd, charged kind of surprise on his face. Weasley shifted uncomfortably, his eyes fixed on Granger, too. She seemed to realize how she’d sounded, and second by second, she reddened. Draco found himself wishing he were several miles away.

“Potter,” he said loudly, breaking the silence, “there’s something funny about this Cloak.”

“What?” Potter looked over at him, startled. “Funny?”

Draco tossed him the Cloak. “Invisibility Cloaks don’t last that long. My father had one that was all but a rag after fifteen years, and that was the top of the line, very expensive.”

Potter caught the Cloak and looked at it, nonplussed.

Weasley was frowning now, too. “You know, I never thought about that. The charms on cloaks are supposed to wear off after a while, and even if they don’t, they usually have tears or frays or _something_. Yours is just … just perfect.”

They all looked at the Cloak for a moment.

“So … what?” Potter said. “What’s that mean?”

Weasley shrugged. “Beats me.” He glanced around the copse. “Where are we, Malfoy?”

“A few miles from my house,” Draco muttered. “I know, I know, we shouldn’t stay here. It was just an instinct.”

Even as he said it, though, his gaze strayed through the trees. He’d used to play in this scrap of woodland, which abutted the manor, when he was small. He could have found his way home blindfolded from here. He made out one corner of the house standing proud at the top of the hill, and he wondered who was inside it now, and to what use it was being put. He wondered about the figures moving through the halls of his childhood like ghosts of the old life, which felt farther away now, as he stood on its threshold, than it ever had.

* * *

They settled into a routine, which, while not particularly relaxing, at least added some structure to their days. In the mornings, they packed up camp. If any of them had an idea about where they might go to search for Hufflepuff’s cup, they spent the afternoon performing Transfigurations and traveling there, although they tried not to Transfigure themselves multiple days in a row. Side effects of excessive Transfiguration included muscular twitching, headaches, and the viscerally horrible feeling that their faces were melting for hours on end.

Soon they had investigated the orphanage where the Dark Lord had apparently been raised. It had turned out to be a dead end; the building had been demolished and replaced by a gray block of Muggle offices. They also visited the village where Helga Hufflepuff had supposedly spent most of her life, Greater Padgley. “Greater than what, exactly?” Weasley had said as they had picked through the few run-down streets.

“It was quite an important place in the 1700s,” Granger said.

After this particular visit, Potter suggested they go to Godric’s Hollow, too. Granger gave him a look that was slightly too knowing as she asked why, exactly, he thought it might be a good place to search.

“I—I don’t know,” Potter said. “I just … never mind.”

There was a lot of this: a village or location brought up randomly, only for it to be eliminated by the others when they couldn’t defend their idea. On the days that they had no new ideas at all, their time was devoted to the brewing of the Polyjuice Potion, and to Occlumency.

The lessons were tense, to say the least. Potter seemed only marginally reassured by his friends’ presence, and Granger and Weasley seemed just as uncomfortable with the idea of reading Potter’s mind. Weasley, attempting Legilimency one afternoon, somehow managed to hex Potter into saying all his sentences backward. “This spell is well past N.E.W.T. standard,” Granger had told him hastily after setting it right. “There’s no reason you _should_ be able to perform it, Ron.”

Then she went back to trying it herself. Draco, sitting on one of the sofa’s arms, kneaded his forehead. “God, Granger, you’re saying the incantation like you’re making a groveling apology,” he told her, exasperated, after a dozenth ineffective attempt. “You have to actually _want_ to do it. Wasn’t this your idea?”

She gave Potter a hundredth tentative look.

“It’s all right, Hermione,” Potter said. “Really. It’s okay.”

Weasley sat down in one of the armchairs rather harder than necessary, watching Granger and Potter making the necessary intense, penetrating eye contact.

“All right,” Draco said. “Ready, then?” _At long, long last?_ he added silently.

They both nodded.

“Good. Potter, if you can’t clear your mind, be aware of what you’re thinking about.” Draco nodded at Granger.

She took a steadying breath, then pointed her wand at Potter and said, “ _Legilimens!”_

It had finally worked. Draco could tell. Potter’s body had gone rigid, while Granger was swaying, her eyes closed, her wand fixed in its outstretched position. Draco and Weasley both watched, unspeaking.

After about thirty seconds, Granger wrenched the wand away. Potter staggered, gasped in a breath, and seized hold of one arm of the sofa, while Granger tottered backward, breathing hard.

“Are you a-all right?” she said, her voice sounding ragged, as though she’d just coughed up salt water.

“It’s … I …” Potter straightened and pushed up his glasses. “Well, it’s better you doing it than Snape.”

“Well, Potter?” Draco said.

“Well, what?”

Draco looked up at the ceiling. “What did I _just_ tell you to do? What did you think about before she cast the spell?”

“Oh.” Potter shook his head, looking disoriented, and Draco remembered Bellatrix rummaging through his own memories, which she’d done eagerly, as if looking for any hint of disloyalty. Yes, it was like surfacing from a violent current, coming out of Legilimency—but this was a controlled environment, and Potter had the luck of doing this with one of his best friends, rather than with a deranged aunt. So it was hard to muster much sympathy.

“I … I guess I was thinking about …” Potter’s cheeks colored, and he looked over at the tent’s entrance. “About Ginny. And, er, Cho.”

“Why?” Weasley said, a bit too sharply.

Potter gave him an indignant look. “It’s not something—would you want anyone seeing you and Lavender snogging?”

Weasley’s ears turned red. “Oh. Right.” He cleared his throat. “Carry on.”

“But that’s not what I saw,” Granger said, glancing to Draco. “I didn’t see anything about Ginny or Cho.”

“Yeah,” Draco said. “It doesn’t always work that way, Granger. Thought you would’ve read about this stuff.”

“I’ve had plenty of other _stuff_ to read about, thank you,” she huffed. “None of the books I’ve brought have particularly detailed passages on Legilimency.”

He smirked and leaned back on the sofa arm. “Sure. Well. Those kinds of memories are called fissure memories, in Legilimency. Maybe they’re not what’s under the surface, but they make it possible for the caster to force their way in. They’re a weakness.”

“I’m not—” Potter started, his voice rising.

“He wasn’t calling you weak, Harry,” Granger said immediately. “Were you, Malfoy?”

Draco eyed Potter. Normally he would have needled him just for the fun of it, but Potter was clearly still on edge from having Granger in his mind, and Draco didn’t want to sit here for another hour waiting for him to calm down. “No,” he said. “It’s … the stuff that you care about. Those are the vulnerable points. Weak points.”

Potter blinked rapidly. “Oh,” he said. “Right. So … er, what do I do about them?”

Draco shrugged. “Stop being embarrassed by them, for a start.”

“What?” Potter looked taken aback. “I’m not embarrassed about Ginny.”

“You’re embarrassed about Cho, though,” Granger said.

Potter shot her a betrayed look. Draco let out a snigger, and Potter looked back at him, his eyes flashing. “Shut up, Malfoy,” he said through gritted teeth.

“This is what I’m talking about,” Draco said. “You wouldn’t care if I laughed if you weren’t self-conscious. You wouldn’t care if Granger saw any of it if you weren’t self-conscious.”

“How am I supposed to—to _not_ be self-conscious about—” Potter was struggling for words. “Stuff like, like Cho, or my cousin—or—” He swallowed hard, then shot Draco a mulish look. “So, what, _you’re_ not embarrassed at all about you and Parkinson?”

“Why should I be?” Draco said. “Do it to me, Granger. Try it, go on.” He rose from the sofa’s arm and straightened his robes.

Granger looked startled for a moment, but she recovered quickly. She lifted her wand, aimed it at him, and said, “ _Legilimens.”_

Draco had already let the world slide into soft focus. He looked at a freckle on Granger’s cheek, then at a panel in the wall. He felt the spell flowing over him, glancing off his surface. It was light, and he was ice. It was a stream of air, and he was stone. Residual thoughts of Pansy carried no charge; they stirred with other thoughts beneath his consciousness like wraiths, dissolving and reforming and dissolving again. Soon enough the spell had broken completely.

“See?” he said, glancing at Potter, who looked reluctantly impressed.

“It felt different from my end, too,” Granger said, turning to Potter with interest, as if they were back in Hogwarts and taking part in an engaging Charms class. “I could feel a sort of … an echo of a feeling, but there weren’t any real images.”

“All right, all right,” Weasley said from the sofa, sounding disgruntled. “Just—try it on Harry again, yeah?”

As the days went on, Draco began to notice Weasley doing this every so often. Whenever the others had a conversation he wasn’t involved in, or went too long without paying attention to him, a defensive look came over him, as if he were afraid of being forgotten completely. This went double when they hadn’t eaten for a while. Soon, with nothing to contribute to the Occlumency lessons, Weasley took the hours as an opportunity to work on his Transfiguration spells, and often the time alone made him moody.

Draco wouldn’t have admitted it aloud, but he didn’t hate the lessons as much as he’d expected to. At the very least, they gave him something to talk to the others about, a neutral subject that made none of them angry with each other. Potter’s mental block in the subject was like a kind of common enemy, something they all wanted gone.

Then, in the second week, it happened again, this time seemingly out of nowhere. They were preparing dinner in the tent. Draco was setting the table with Weasley, and they were arguing about the uselessness of the Chudley Cannons, which Draco couldn’t believe Weasley thought was up for debate. Granger and Potter were talking about something else over the hissing sound of oil. Then, suddenly, they heard the _CRACK_ of the enchantments shattering outside.

Now, though, they had a contingency plan, which Granger had forced them to rehearse several times. Draco let the cutlery clatter to the floor, seized a fistful of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder from the mantel, and flung it through the tent flap, scattering it all over the clearing with a sweep of his wand. As voices cried out in the distance, they all spilled out of the exit under cover of the black cloud that had swallowed the woodland. Granger summoned the tent’s pegs, and Potter and Weasley collapsed the tent. Draco threw up Shield Charms at every spell that whizzed out of the darkness. Within thirty seconds, they had Disapparated.

Though the plan had worked, they were shaken. They moved twice more that night, having pointless arguments about how secure each location was, when the truth was that no location seemed more or less secure than another.

Finally, they settled in a mountain cave large enough to set up the tent inside it. Granger cast a Screening Spell to duplicate the appearance of the rock face over the entrance to the cave.

The hasty collapse of the tent had spilled many of its contents, including dinner. They spent the better part of an hour putting the apartment back into order. When they’d finally finished, they slumped onto the sofa and the armchairs, feeling hungry and bad-tempered.

“My scar hasn’t even been that bad today,” Potter said. “What if we’re getting it wrong? What if it’s something else that’s doing it?”

“Well,” Granger said, “at the very least, it can’t hurt for you to be able to close your mind.”

Potter made a grudging noise of agreement.

“I just hope the Scavengers set us on the trail of that locket,” Weasley said. “I’m getting tired of just moving around, getting nothing done.”

“I keep thinking about that,” said Granger. “What if we find the Horcruxes before we can find a way to destroy them, and then the Death Eaters catch us?”

She was sitting with her knees up at the opposite end of the sofa from Draco. He had a sudden mental image of her at her parents’ house, on the floor of her sitting room, wearing an overlarge T-shirt and hugging her knees to her chest. The memory felt uncomfortably intimate somehow, even though it was his own. He looked away from her, back at the empty hearth.

“Or worse,” Potter said, “what if they turn up in the middle of the night and we can’t Disapparate fast enough?”

There was a desolate silence.

“Thanks, Potter,” Draco said. “I’ve been sleeping too well. That ought to help.”

“I wish we still had headquarters,” Weasley mumbled, stretching out in his armchair.

Potter took in a short breath and sat upright.

“What?” Granger said, sounding anxious.

“Well …” he said slowly. “Why don’t we set up our own headquarters?”

They all looked at him without speaking for a moment.

“Nothing like this ever happened at Grimmauld Place,” he went on. “Why don’t we find a place to cast the Fidelius Charm?”

Weasley stood up from his armchair. “Harry, that’s an idea,” he said with rising excitement, starting to pace across the sitting room. “Fred and George were talking about a proper underground resistance. We could make a place where the Order could meet and regroup.”

“Yeah,” said Potter. “And we wouldn’t have to look over our shoulder every second. We’d have a safe place to go with the Horcruxes.”

Weasley was nodding. “Where, though?”

“We’ll have to think of somewhere good,” Potter said. “It can’t just be in the middle of nowhere, or people on our side wouldn’t know where to go.”

“Wait, wait, hang on,” said Granger. “You two are forgetting that none of us can do the Fidelius Charm.”

“Isn’t it in one of your books?” Potter said.

“I … I don’t know. Maybe.” Granger stood and crossed to the wall of bookshelves, which were substantially fuller now than when they’d moved in. “It could be …” She took down a tome that was nearly the width of her head. After a minute of paging through it, she nodded. “Yes, it’s here.” Her voice was restrained.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just … it looks really difficult, Harry. We don’t know anyone besides Dumbledore who’s been able to do that charm.”

Draco let out a loud snort. They all looked at him.

“What are you snorting at?” said Weasley.

Draco ignored him. “Granger,” he said, “could you not waste our time with false modesty?”

She drew herself up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think? I’m saying, when have you ever _not_ been able to do a charm?”

The indignation faded from her face, and she looked at him in surprise, her cheeks coloring. She looked _flattered_ , Draco realized, which was ridiculous. It hadn’t been a compliment. He’d been pointing out how annoying it was for her to pretend that this would be an issue.

It had to be false modesty, didn’t it? Surely, after six straight years of incessant praise by teachers and immaculate test scores, Granger couldn’t _actually_ be insecure about her magical performance?

“Thank you,” she said slowly, as if waiting for him to say he’d been joking.

Weasley jumped in. “Well, we all know you can do it,” he said quickly, shooting an irritated look at Draco. “You’ve gotten a hundred and fifty percent on every other Charms exam since we got to Hogwarts. It’s your best subject.”

“It’s not,” she said, though the corner of her mouth was twitching. “Arithmancy is my best subj—”

“Hermione, you only have to get it right one time,” Potter said. “That’ll be easy for you.”

Granger was scarlet now. “Well,” she said, sounding bewildered, but looking down at the book and clearly trying not to smile. “I can try, of course.”

And so Granger’s practice of the Fidelius Charm was added to the routine. She spent long hours outside the tent in the afternoons, practicing clockwise and counterclockwise turns of her wand, whispering strings of incantations under her breath.

Some evenings, they gathered in the sitting room to listen to the twins’ Wizarding Wireless. The newscasts they heard were growing increasingly suspect: every programme reiterated the idea that Rufus Scrimgeour was taking a much-needed vacation, and that Dumbledore’s death was associated with the highly suspicious Harry Potter, and that unity among wizards was paramount. Erratic reports from listeners suggested that the Dark Lord had been seen in dozens of locations across Britain. These frightened listeners were then soothed by instructions disseminated by the Ministry—which included, in many cases, suggestions to spy on friends and neighbors, so as to ensure that they were law-abiding citizens rather than rabble-rousers and violent dissidents, such as the unhinged and recently at-large Dedalus Diggle, etc.

One particular radio broadcast had made Potter, Weasley, and Granger all roar with indignation: the announcement that Severus Snape had been selected by the Ministry to take over from Albus Dumbledore as Headmaster of Hogwarts, with Amycus Carrow as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and his sister Alecto tapped for the Muggle Studies vacancy. Draco wasn’t particularly surprised, but he didn’t like to think what the Carrows would do to unruly students. He hoped his friends were smart enough to fall in line.

Meanwhile, they continued with Occlumency. Draco didn’t think he could have imagined a person more temperamentally ill-suited for the discipline than Potter, but by the end of the second week, they were making _some_ progress, at least. Now, if Granger gave Potter a minute’s lead time before casting the spell, he could unreliably fight it off after thirty or forty seconds’ Legilimency. That level of resistance would have been useless against Snape or the Dark Lord, who would have been able to find anything they needed within several seconds, but still, Draco caught himself feeling slightly smug about Potter’s incremental progress. Snape had tried to teach Potter for months and hadn’t gotten anywhere, after all.

In some ways, he almost felt as if they were back at Hogwarts, with a potion bubbling in the corner, scheduled lessons, reference texts strewn across the flat, and—most of all—the way Granger could constantly be heard parroting facts. “The Fidelius is a twelve-part spell,” she explained over dinner one night, “and the third and ninth incantations are spoken in reverse, and the accompanying thought patterns for the fourth through tenth all require different kinds of memory work. It really is astoundingly difficult.”

But Draco thought she sounded a bit excited at the challenge.

“So,” he said, “which of you three is going to be Secret-Keeper, anyway?”

Granger looked at him in mock surprise. “I was assuming you would volunteer, Malfoy.”

Potter chortled. Even Weasley grinned somewhat reluctantly.

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Draco said, slurping his soup loudly at her, “but only for the entertainment value of not letting you three inside.”

“Fair question, though,” Potter said. “Which of us should it be?”

An uncertain silence fell over the table. All three Gryffindors looked intimidated at the idea.

“It’d be stupid for it to be Potter,” Draco said. “The Death Eaters will expect that.”

Potter looked indignant. “Dumbledore was the last Secret-Keeper, and that was a pretty obvious choice, wasn’t it?”

“Of course. A perfect comparison, since you, like Albus Dumbledore, can easily duel half a dozen Death Eaters at a time.”

He waited for Potter to scowl or snap at him, but Potter considered for a second. Then he took another bite of cauliflower and said, “Eight on a good day, thanks.”

Draco wasn’t expecting it. A laugh startled out of him, and Granger and Weasley laughed, too, and then they were all grinning stupidly down at their plates, none of them meeting each other’s eyes.

Granger cleared her throat and looked up. “Anyway, it’s a fair point,” she said. “It didn’t matter that Professor Dumbledore was the obvious choice when they were all so frightened of him. You don’t have that advantage, Harry.”

Another brief silence. Granger and Potter exchanged a look. Then, as one, they looked at Weasley.

“I think it should be you, mate,” said Potter.

Weasley looked slightly stunned. “Wh-what? Me?”

“Yes, you, Ron,” said Granger, smiling. “You’re related to half the Order, for a start, and you still know much more about the Wizarding World than either Harry or I do. That could come in handy if we’re ever trying to recruit, or spread the word.”

“But … but I …”

“What, you’re not planning on blabbing, are you?” said Potter.

“No, shut up, of course not.” Weasley’s whole face had turned red. “But … you really mean it?”

Draco saw that Weasley was sitting up ramrod-straight in his chair. Every trace of woundedness and exclusion had melted out of him. He wore a look of glowing pride, as if he’d just been handed the Quidditch Cup, rather than a job that would make him an infinitely more valuable prisoner, or object of torture, to the Death Eaters.

Draco’s throat tightened, and he looked back down at his food, his appetite dwindling. He felt the way he’d felt at Christmas last year: suddenly aware of how young he was. He felt as if they were play-acting, all four of them, at adulthood and responsibility. Weasley couldn’t understand what was really happening to him right now—could he? Would he come to realize the full implications of this decision, in an awful way, or would he, Potter, and Granger somehow slink out of this unscathed, as they always managed to?

But … _no,_ Draco thought. They weren’t unscathed. Potter’s fissure memories during Occlumency showed that much: the deaths of Sirius Black, his parents, Cedric Diggory. The graveyard, where he’d felt the Cruciatus too. And Granger had sent her parents away as strangers, accepting that she might die unknown to them, and Weasley had two brothers now with scars. So it wasn’t like the Gryffindors were completely whole.

Draco glanced around at the others, the trio he’d hated so enthusiastically for so long, and thought about the ways they hurt, and everything they were risking. Foolishly, maybe—but not without reason. He found he couldn’t look at any of them for long.

Occlumency was difficult that evening. Draco felt surly and unhelpful, and they scarcely managed an hour before Potter went to bed, making some feeble excuse but obviously suffering discomfort in his scar. Weasley followed a short while later.

Draco sank into one of the armchairs while Granger pored over one of her textbooks on the sofa. He turned the silver ring with the Malfoy crest around his pinky finger, wondering about his parents. His mother and father had a bad habit of not speaking when they were worried, or speaking only in clipped sentences that verged on clichés. They rarely fought, but in times of tension there was a lot of icy silence at the manor, the kind you could feel on your skin like a gentle weight. The gold he would have spent to get a single message to them, telling them he was safe …

“It’s getting better, isn’t it?”

Draco looked over at Granger and found her eyes on him. He straightened in his chair, feeling self-conscious, wondering how long she’d been watching him stare into nothing.

He didn’t ask her to elaborate. He knew she meant living with the three of them, and she was right. Things were better than they had been. Potter was still awkward, but apparently that was just his personality. Even Weasley seemed occasionally to be able to relax around him now, or at least, benignly ignore him. Hadn’t they just laughed together over dinner?

Draco lifted his shoulders.

“You’re really helping Harry,” Granger said. “In fifth year, he wouldn’t even practice Occlumency, Snape made him so miserable.”

“Yeah, well. Hopefully it’ll keep us all from getting murdered in our beds.”

“Yes, hopefully.” Granger was tracing the paragraphs in her textbook absentmindedly. He found himself watching the movement of her fingertip over the black lines of text. “I wonder if I’d be any good at Occlumency,” she mused.

“Doubt it,” Draco said. “No offense, Granger, but people who chronically care too much about everything aren’t exactly predisposed to Occlumency.”

He expected her to protest, but a small smile tugged at her mouth instead. She flipped the textbook shut and nestled her head into the sofa cushions. “Did you say Bellatrix taught you Occlumency?”

He nodded.

“When?”

“End of last summer,” he said, not really knowing why he was answering, except that it was late, and he was tired, and dinner had left him feeling uncertain. “After I got my assignment.”

“Did … did you know what it meant?” Granger’s voice was quieter, now, in a way that made him realize how quiet the flat was around them. “When he told you to kill Dumbledore?”

He let out a soft, derisive sound. “Yeah. Obviously. I mean, everyone knew. The other Death Eaters wouldn’t shut up about it—talking about how they’d always wanted to see my parents taken down a notch. They thought it was really funny.”

“ _Funny?_ ”

He shrugged. “They all resented us for one reason or another. But mainly it just wasn’t happening to them. Everything’s funny when it’s not happening to you.” Draco began to turn the silver ring around his finger again. A headache had started to pulse deep in his skull. “All year,” he muttered, “I was just waiting to get back on that side of it, where I was the one watching and … and, yeah, laughing. I mean, it wasn’t like I loved it so much, watching things happen to other people, but if you’re watching, it’s not you.” He paused. “I mean, and I felt special at first. … You have to think you’re going to feel that way again, or what’s the point, you might as well just die.”

Draco didn’t even know if he was making any sense. He didn’t think he was articulating the last year particularly well, but that was the thing about nightmares. They came out of your grip.

He glanced over at Granger, who was holding the tome in her lap. She looked awkward and uncertain, startled if not completely surprised, and he felt suddenly older than her, and somehow unclean, as if she were brand new, and he was revealing something horrible about the world to her. He wondered if he’d said too much, if he’d disturbed her.

He wondered, too, if she would tell Potter and Weasley. Even a few weeks ago he would have been absolutely certain that she would. Now, though, for some reason, he wasn’t sure.

He’d never told Pansy these things. And it wasn’t as if Pansy hadn’t asked. But he’d wanted Pansy to keep looking at him the way she always had, like he was something precious she aspired to cradle in her hands. Granger looked at him like she could lay him open with her eyes, like she wanted to. Even now, unsettled, there was flint in her gaze.

“You flinch sometimes,” she said. “When people go for their wands. Is that because …”

Pansy wouldn’t have said these things.

“Only twice,” Draco said, and then he stood and went to bed.

* * *

With under a week to go until the Scavengers’ Guild came to Diagon Alley, Hermione decided it was time to try the Fidelius Charm for the first time. They still had no real idea where they might place a new headquarters, but it would be vital to perfect every detail of the charm, so Hermione wanted to practice it before the real thing.

They cordoned off a small patch of woodland: this would be the area bound by the Secret. Harry would stand inside that patch while Hermione cast the charm upon Ron, making him the Secret-Keeper. If all went to plan, Malfoy would then be unable to see Harry, and Hermione would be unable to speak his location to Malfoy. They would perform several tests on the area, like Harry walking through its boundaries, which should be permeable yet undetectable, and Malfoy trying to Apparate into its bounds, which should be impossible. Then Ron would confide the secret to Malfoy to ensure that the information could expand from person to person in the proper way.

Hermione found herself full of jitters that morning. She knew it wasn’t the real headquarters, and there were no real stakes to the exercise, but she couldn’t help feeling that she was standing in the hall before her Charms O.W.L., running through everything she’d mentally prepared, full of anxiety that some unforeseen problem would come up.

She had prepared several sheets of parchment, shorthand notes that she could follow step by step. After lunch, they approached the cordoned-off area. Malfoy leaned against a nearby tree while Harry sat down within the ropes they’d conjured. Hermione faced Ron, who was holding her notes so she could read them.

“You’ll be fine,” Ron told her. She tried to smile, but his words had made no impact on her nerves. They rolled off the jagged edge of what she was feeling, as his and Harry’s exam-time reassurances always had.

Hermione took a deep breath, raised her wand, and began.

During the first attempt, she misspoke a syllable in the first of the charm’s twelve incantations.

During the second and third attempts, she stuttered over the fifth and eleventh incantations, respectively.

On the fourth attempt, her mind strayed for a split instant from the seventh incantation’s required thought pattern (a memory that evoked intense and unshakable security).

It went on and on that way. She reached two dozen attempts, then four, and with each new failure, Hermione felt more and more as if she were falling into one of her old nightmares. For months during fifth year, leading up to their O.W.L.s, she would startle awake in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, certain that she’d just walked into the testing room to discover that she’d forgotten to study the most important section of her notes—and then all of her supposed potential, her supposed great ability, would fall by the wayside and go unrecognized, and she wouldn’t be able to sign up for N.E.W.T.s or have any proper job prospects, and her parents’ disappointment would be coupled with her friends’ surprise and her enemies’ vindictive satisfaction, and the rest of her life would be filled with regret.

After half an hour, Harry urged her to take a break. Ron agreed, saying all she needed to do was take a walk around and try again in a bit.

Malfoy just watched her from where he was leaning against the tree. He didn’t say anything, but she could tell that he was surprised by what he was seeing. She found herself thinking of how he’d said, _When have you ever not been able to do a charm?_ and it just made her stomach twist up more tightly. With every failure she was rewriting her identity as someone incompetent and unworthy. Even Draco Malfoy had thought of her as someone who, at the base of it all, could do any spell—someone who was powerfully magical. But he was wrong. They all were.

She did take a break, and a short walk, but it didn’t help. After nearly three hours, they stopped. Hermione’s throat was tight, and her eyes kept burning. There had been many attempts when she’d thought she’d done everything right—and yet the spell still hadn’t taken.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, unable to look at the boys. “I’ve wasted your whole afternoon.”

“What else were we doing, exactly?” Malfoy said. She glanced over. He was sitting among the tree roots now, his silvery hair dappled with the sunlight that was peeking through the boughs.

Harry stepped out of the cordoned area. “It’s all right, Hermione,” he said. “Everyone needs practice.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Ron said. “That’s what this was for—to practice. Remember last year, we thought we were going to be absolutely slaughtered at Quidditch? But we practiced every night, even when we felt like rubbish, and everything turned out all right.”

Hermione nodded, not wanting to tell Ron that this didn’t feel like Quidditch at all. It wasn’t a team effort—it was just her. This felt like a fundamental verification of what she’d always feared: that she wasn’t _really_ talented, but just good for her age; that she wasn’t truly exceptional in any way, and certainly not brilliant enough to override what people would expect from her, being a girl, and being Muggle-born, and being herself. It just wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough. If only there were a way for her to transcend herself … to …

But there was.

She drew a sharp breath, feeling like an idiot for not having thought of it sooner. “The diadem!”

Ron brightened immediately. “Hermione, that’s it! Try it with the diadem on. You’ve already done all the preparation. I’m sure that’s all you need to get it right.”

As Harry hurried back into the cordoned area, she fished the tiara out of her bag. The second it was in her hand, she felt a sense of security wash over her, and when she placed it upon her head, she felt several inches taller, and lighter, too, as if she were hovering slightly above the forest floor.

 _How stupid not to think of the diadem before,_ said a smooth, cool voice in her mind. Without it, she did foolish, forgetful things. Without the diadem, she was fallible and unexceptional, only human. With it, she was so much more.

She raised her wand, looked at her sheet of notes, and began to speak the incantations.

At first, the uncanny clarity brought her relief and confidence. With every new syllable she spoke, though, the clarity began to elicit a different effect. She started noticing every single moment in the charm that she was failing to perform up to standard. It wasn’t just an issue of correcting one little flaw. Her pronunciations were imprecise throughout, her wand movements inaccurate by matters of degrees. Her memories were more focused with the diadem, but they still lacked the propulsive force that, for instance, Harry drew on for his Patronus.

Before she’d even finished the charm, she lowered her wand.

“What are you stopping for?” Ron said. “That sounded great!”

“No,” she said. “It isn’t good enough. I’m not even close. I need to do much more work on it. We’ll try again another day—I’m going to practice by myself.”

She took the notes from his hand and walked back toward the clearing where she’d been practicing, the diadem still on her head.

Two hours seemed to pass in two minutes. She tried several other advanced charms that implemented some of the same techniques as the Fidelius, honing her memory recall, shaping and refining the feeling of the incantations upon her tongue, the particular way her lips and soft palate and jaw had to move in tandem to create the words’ precise and unusual syllables. These weren’t the ordinary Latinate spell roots, but words that had their bases in lost language. With the diadem, though, she was learning precision and perfection; everything was beginning to fall into place for her with a speed and power that she associated with her first year at school, the pure shock and exhilaration of being able to wave her wand and send a feather flying into the air, in defiance of her old life as a Muggle. And really, she thought, wasn’t it a blessing to be so far away from Muggle influence now? Wasn’t it a relief to be in the world of wizards, who were remarkable and special, the way she was—to have cast off the dull, comparatively barbaric mantle of her upbringing?

“How’d it go?” said Harry when she ducked back into the tent, the diadem replaced in her bag.

“Really well,” she exclaimed. She felt a bit intoxicated. The past two hours felt almost blurred; she couldn’t remember exactly which spells she’d done, or what she’d been thinking, really, but she had the feeling of intense productivity, as if she’d just finished four feet of parchment for Professor Flitwick.

 _It’s a Horcrux,_ she’d told herself continually while wearing the diadem. It’s a Horcrux. But the reminder was only perfunctory, really. Yes, it was Dark magic, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t still be useful. The diadem— _it’s lonely,_ she found herself thinking, and although it felt strange to ascribe the feeling to an object, she knew that it was true. The diadem wanted to be helpful; it had already helped them. It could help them even more.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” she said, sitting down at the dinner table. “I think we should all try the diadem on.”

Ron, who was stirring a pan of slowly browning green beans, laughed. “Hermione, I hate to be the one to tell you, but I’m not going to be able to manage that Fidelius Charm, diadem or no.”

“Not for that,” she said. “I just mean, who knows what we might be able to figure out about the Horcruxes if we’re all able to think with total clarity?”

Harry hesitated before answering. “I suppose you do … you do feel all right?” he asked. “I mean, it’s not like Ginny, where you’re … I don’t know, getting reliant on it?”

“I’m not reliant on it,” she said quickly. “I forgot about it completely for two weeks, didn’t I? I hadn’t touched it in ages before today.”

Harry and Ron exchanged a look, then shrugged. “All right,” Ron said. “I don’t see the harm. Pop it on, see what happens, take it off.”

“I don’t know,” said Malfoy.

They turned toward him. He’d been lying on the sofa in the sitting room, reading, but now he was sitting up and looking at her beaded bag, grey eyes narrowed.

“Why not?” Hermione said.

“I … don’t know,” he said again.

“Scared of the tiara, Malfoy?” Ron chortled.

Malfoy’s cheeks turned pink, and he rose from the sofa. “Yeah, Weasley, I don’t _adore_ the idea of something with a piece of the Dark Lord’s soul in it.”

Hermione hastened to defuse the argument. “I know it’s dangerous,” she said, although even as she said it, she had the odd feeling of reading lines off a script. “I know it’s a Horcrux. But we have to think about the bigger picture. If this one helps us find the rest, then engaging with it is necessary. It’s the best tool we’ve got right now.”

Malfoy examined her face. Hermione didn’t know what he was looking for, what he was expecting to see, but as she met his eyes, she felt jarred, shaken awake, as if she were coming back into herself for the first time since she’d put the diadem on.

These days, whenever she and Malfoy spoke, she remembered what he’d told her the night that Harry and Ron had gone to bed early. She couldn’t shake the brief, brutal description of his mindset during the previous year. _If you’re watching, it’s not you._

And then— _only twice,_ he’d said, as if being subjected to the Cruciatus Curse a mere two times was something he should be grateful for.

She’d half expected him to be furious with her for asking, or, in the days that followed, to shun her, angry with himself instead for telling her. But he hadn’t made any allusion to the conversation at all. Sometimes she thought his voice sounded different when he spoke to her—less drawling, maybe, or more confidential. Like he wanted her to laugh at his jokes.

She hadn’t told Harry or Ron what he’d said. It didn’t seem right to tell them, but then it left her with a strange weight in her chest when she looked at Malfoy. Had he told anyone else at all? She didn’t think he would have told Crabbe or Goyle or his Slytherin friends—he liked to impress them, he liked them to think he was in control. But did that mean she was the only person in the world besides the Death Eaters who knew he’d been tortured by Lord Voldemort?

“We’ll be careful,” she told him. “Really careful. We can time it, all right? Ten minutes or something, that’s all.”

After another long moment, some of the tension in his expression eased, and he muttered, “All right.”

So, after dinner, they sat down in the sitting room and passed the diadem from person to person. Hermione felt a slight jealous twinge, seeing the others handle it, but she pushed it back. This had been her idea, after all.

Ron was the first to go. He placed the diadem on his head, the sapphires contrasting with his brilliantly red hair, and closed his eyes. He steepled his fingers the way he sometimes did when he was contemplating the best approach for a checkmate.

After three minutes or so, he let out a shaky laugh and opened his eyes. “Wow. It’s something, isn’t it?”

Hermione nodded eagerly. “Have you remembered anything new?”

“No. I mean, it isn’t really doing much for my memory.”

“It—it isn’t?” Hermione said, taken aback. “When I wear it, I can remember answers I gave to tests four years ago.”

“Well, that’s you, isn’t it?” Ron shook his head. “I feel like I’m … I dunno, like I’m a thousand miles away, or something.”

“A thousand miles away?” said Harry, uncomprehending. Malfoy was watching the proceedings silently from one of the armchairs, a look of lingering mistrust on his face.

“Yeah,” Ron said. “Like I’m looking down on everything and I can see all the little pieces moving around.” He shrugged. “Like a chess match. It’s all making sense, the blood status registration at Hogwarts, and everything we’re hearing on the Wireless. … I mean, that’ll be their next move, won’t it? Making it seem like blood status is something that actually matters in an official way, and then they can push that into the Ministry, too. I suppose they’ll be finding an excuse to register everyone next, not just students. And if they’re using you as a scapegoat, Harry, they can make it all seem like it’s something Dumbledore would’ve approved of. They’re trying to muddy the waters.”

Hermione nodded. Now that Ron said it, it seemed perfectly obvious that this was what the Death Eaters’ agenda would demand next.

“But what’s _our_ move?” Harry said. “What are we supposed to do to stop them?”

Ron shook his head. “I think we’re doing all we can, mate. We’ve got our job from Dumbledore. The Death Eaters have the whole Ministry on their side. There’s too many of them for us to try and go against them outright. Hunting the Horcruxes is our way to checkmate.”

Harry sighed. “All right. Let me try it, then.”

Ron looked momentarily reluctant, but he took the diadem off and passed it to Harry, who jammed it over his untidy black hair and waited for something to happen.

“Well?” said Malfoy, after several long, quiet minutes of thought.

“Godric’s Hollow,” Harry said.

“What?” Hermione said.

“I … I just want to go there. I don’t know. I can’t really tell why. I mean, I wanted to go anyway, but this makes me want to go there even more.” Harry looked between them. “Do you think Ravenclaw’s trying to tell me something?”

Hermione frowned. “That’s not how it works.”

Ron bobbed his shoulders. “It’s probably your own instincts.”

“Instincts?” Hermione said. “But _instinct_ isn’t … it’s not …”

A mulish look was forming on Harry’s face now. “Hermione, you said to try it on, and I’ve tried it on, and that’s what it’s telling me. I just have a feeling we should go there. I mean, the sword was in Dumbledore’s will, and I read in that Skeeter article, Dumbledore’s from Godric’s Hollow.”

“Yes,” Hermione said impatiently, “but none of his family will have lived there for decades. It wouldn’t have been passed to anyone there.”

“Well, we don’t have other leads, do we?” said Harry, sounding exasperated. “Why can’t we go?”

Hermione bit her lip. “Because I’m worried someone might be expecting us, Harry! The Death Eaters know that you and I, at least, are on the run. A town that both you and Dumbledore are connected to? The place where … well, where your parents’ graves are? Don’t you think they’ll be expecting you to visit?”

“Maybe that’s why I feel like we should,” Harry insisted. “Look, _someone_ took Dumbledore’s bequests from the Ministry, which means someone’s trying to help us. Who’s to say that person isn’t looking for a place we might visit?”

This made Hermione hesitate. She hadn’t thought of that angle.

Harry seized on her hesitation and rounded on Ron and Malfoy. “What do you two think?” he asked.

Neither of them looked keen to give their opinion.

“I … I mean, everywhere’s dangerous at this point, right?” Ron said feebly. “I think we might as well.”

“I abstain from the vote,” Malfoy said.

“You can’t abstain,” Hermione said.

“Yes, he can,” Harry said triumphantly. “That’s two to one, Hermione. We’ll go tomorrow.”

She sighed. “Fine,” she said as Harry took the diadem off and chucked it somewhat unceremoniously at Malfoy.

Malfoy caught the diadem. He turned it over and over, examining it, before gingerly sliding it over his blond hair. The wrought silver ornament made him look slightly elfin.

Hermione wondered what was happening to Malfoy’s thoughts. It seemed that the diadem affected them all differently. What would the benefits be to him?

There was an unusual focus in Malfoy’s eyes, which reminded Hermione of Harry’s expression during their Occlumency lessons. Did Malfoy’s affinity for Occlumency extend to Legilimency? Was he looking into their minds now? Hermione knew that if she wanted to prevent him from dipping into her thoughts, then, she should avoid his gaze—but she found herself doing the opposite, watching his eyes slide over Harry and then Ron, waiting with a strange kind of anticipation for him to look at her. He’d revealed thoughts and memories to her, after all, that she never would have expected him to reveal.

The second he met her eyes, though, she felt a heated, panicked rush. No. There were things she wanted to keep private. The way she’d cried over Ron and Lavender last year. The way she’d lain awake in second year, thinking about what Malfoy had called her on the Quidditch field. The way she’d lain awake last week in this very tent, thinking about Malfoy’s rigid expression as he’d said, _You have to think you’re going to feel that way again, or what’s the point, you might as well just die._

She looked away from him, her heart beating a bit too hard, her palms tingling and sweaty.

After a moment, Malfoy took the diadem off.

“What?” Harry said. “Didn’t anything happen?”

“Nothing useful.” He handed the diadem back to Hermione and stood. “I’m going to bed.”

* * *

The next morning, they Apparated several miles away from Godric’s Hollow, so that they could walk into the village without attracting attention. At the Apparition point, they spent an hour or so on their Transfigurations. Initially they’d thought that it would be the most inconspicuous to look like a family on an outing, but this raised the somewhat ridiculous discussion of which of them should be parents and which should be children.

“Well, you’ll have to be the mother, I suppose,” Harry said to Hermione.

“Families can have two fathers,” she protested. “Or no mother.”

“Hmm,” Ron said, grinning. “Sounds like you’re just trying to get out of giving birth to two of us.”

“ _In fact,_ ” Hermione said loudly, “maybe it would be best for there to be two fathers, because then none of us would need to look like blood relatives, so we wouldn’t need to do as many alterations.”

“God, are these my only options?” said Malfoy, looking between Ron and Harry with his nose wrinkled. “Can I be an adopted cousin, or something?”

“You can be the family owl,” Ron said.

In the end, they abandoned the family idea and merely settled for Transfiguring themselves as far from their usual appearance as was comfortable.

It was a cool, breezy day, the sky a flat sheet of white cloud as they walked into the village. Godric’s Hollow in August was filled with families, many of whom were walking around the picturesque little square in the heart of the village. Unattended groups of children were laughing and chasing each other down the narrow, winding streets. It was a beautiful place, and Hermione tried not to watch Harry too closely. His eyes kept straying wistfully to the children. She knew he was thinking about the childhood he’d lost here, the life he might have had if not for Voldemort.

They were moving toward the church when Malfoy stopped, facing down one of the smaller lanes. He didn’t say anything, but they all looked in the same direction.

Hermione saw it, too. At the end of the row of large, charming cottages was a wreck that the Muggles nearby couldn’t seem to see at all. Blasted half apart, one upper corner of its structure was open to the elements.

Harry couldn’t seem to speak. He just drifted toward it as if magnetized, and they all followed.

They stopped in front of the cottage’s wild, overgrown hedge and an ancient gate. Harry reached out, not seeming fully aware of his own motions, and brushed his hand against the gate. The next moment, a sign of golden wood was sprouting up. Words were engraved into it:

_On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981,_

_Lily and James Potter lost their lives._

_Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever_

_to have survived the Killing Curse._

_This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left_

_in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters_

_and as a reminder of the violence_

_that tore apart their family._

Around the words were lines of ink graffiti—words of encouragement. _Good luck, Harry, wherever you are. … Long live Harry Potter._ Harry ran one hand over the words, and as he read them, a smile grew upon his face, until he was beaming.

“Hang on,” Hermione said, an idea striking her. She took out her wand—none of the Muggles seemed to see them anymore, now that they were in such close proximity to the cottage—and tapped the sign. “ _Aparecium!”_

All four of them took in a sharp breath. A handwritten line of script had appeared in the bottom corner of the sign.

_Return to the site of survival_

“The site of survival?” Malfoy said.

Ron was frowning at the words. “What do you think that means?”

“I think it’s for me,” Harry murmured.

Hermione’s eyes had strayed up from the sign, back onto the ruined building.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I think it means you’re supposed to go there.” She pointed to the blasted corner of the cottage, to the remains of the room, just out of sight, where the Killing Curse had rebounded sixteen years ago. “There, Harry. The place you survived.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mood for this chapter: things being unexpectedly okay sometimes! haha don’t worry though, things will continue to get worse
> 
> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com/)


	9. The Queen of the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends! as a quick note, i wanted to say that whenever someone compares this fic to canon, i swoon! i’ve been making a conscious effort to cleave as closely to JKR’s writing style and tone as i can, in hopes that the fic will feel contiguous to the first six books. i’m really thrilled that this seems to be coming through for some of y’all—it’s exactly what i’d hoped!!
> 
> much love, and i hope you enjoy another stupidly long chapter, lol

“I still don’t think we should follow some unsigned note scribbled in a public place,” Draco muttered as they approached the Potter cottage again. “Anyone could have written it.”

“Yes, well, that’s why we just went on a miniature goose chase, isn’t it,” came Granger’s whisper from thin air. “To shake them off if they were watching.”

After reading the note, they’d drifted away from the cottage like disinterested tourists. They’d gone right out of Godric’s Hollow, swapped their Transfigurations for Disillusionments, and Potter and Granger—the two smallest of their number—had donned the Invisibility Cloak for good measure before they’d sneaked back into the village.

Now, standing in front of the cottage again, Draco didn’t like the idea of going inside. “What if they’ve set up some kind of ward or alert?” he said.

“As long as it’s not an anti-Apparition ward, it doesn’t matter,” Granger whispered back. “And we can check for that. Everyone remember the plan?”

“If anything fishy happens,” Weasley muttered, “Disapparate to that cave where we stayed after they found us last time.”

“Good,” Potter said. “Come on.” The ivy on the post beside the iron gate trembled slightly, as if in a breeze, as he and Granger climbed up and over it.

Draco sighed, but followed.

The Potter cottage was made of handsome weathered stone, though it was mostly obscured by the dark ivy that had grown wild over its face. The front door must have once been a bright, inviting crimson, but the paint had dulled in the intervening sixteen years, peeling and flaking between the boards, the door handle rusted.

“Let’s look for a side door,” Potter whispered. “I don’t think we should just … just walk in through the …”

Draco didn’t miss the strain in his voice. Draco suddenly imagined himself coming back to Malfoy Manor after a decade to find it overgrown, the gardens a mess of weeds, the windows stained, the upper storey blasted apart—the picture of neglect, disuse, and outright damage.

Weasley had clearly also sensed Potter’s discomfort. “Come on,” he said, “let’s try this way.” He took the lead, and they fell into step after his faint outline.

They picked around the side of the cottage, trying to follow the path of cracked flagstones so as not to leave depressions in the grass or dirt. At the cottage’s back corner was a small overhang, and beneath it, a second red door with black brackets.

“ _Alohomora_ ,” whispered Granger’s voice. The lock whined and scraped as it opened, and Weasley pushed the door wide.

They entered a small kitchen with slightly outdated fixtures. It might, at one point, have been a cozy place: Draco’s eyes lingered on nested copper pots atop the cabinetry, and on an enchanted plate mounted on the wall, where a painted rooster pecked eternally at some seeds in a few brushstrokes of grass. But time had worn away the comforts. The air smelled of rot, and the corners of the ceilings were spotted with mold.

It seemed that the sign had spoken literally. No one seemed to have touched the place at all since that Halloween night. Draco’s gaze fixed on a detail that felt somehow appalling: a single water glass that stood on the edge of the counter, near the sink. Someone might have just pulled a drink of water from the tap and left the glass there to rest.

Weasley shut the door behind them, sweeping a section of the hardwood floor clean. Otherwise, the dust was like thin carpet, undisturbed—except for a single pair of footsteps that led forward, into a dark, narrow hallway.

“Look,” Draco said. “Some—someone’s been here.” He didn’t like that his voice had come out higher than usual.

“We know someone’s been here,” said Granger, clearly trying for a matter-of-fact tone, but she sounded tense, too. “Whoever left the note.”

“Let’s go, then, shall we?” said Weasley. “Let’s not linger.”

“Yeah,” said Potter, his voice hoarse. “No _Lumos_ —someone might see from outside.”

They entered the dark hallway, where Draco could only just make out the photographs in tarnished frames that hung on the walls. One recurring character looked so exactly like Potter that it couldn’t have been anyone but his father; another, a woman with long, dark red hair, must have been his mother. Draco hesitated at a photograph of them waving at a small, black-haired baby. In terms of years, they looked hardly older than Draco, but the love, pride, and concentrated affection in their faces, their intense focus as they looked at their son, made Draco feel a decade their junior. It was a look he associated with his own parents, and in that moment he missed his family so much it was like his lungs had been pressed shut by an outside force.

He forced himself to breathe, to walk, not to make a sound. They passed a small reading room with dust-laden sofas, something that looked like a guest bedroom, and emerged in the front room of the cottage, where a stairwell led to the upper storey. The stairs creaked horribly as they climbed, but soon they emerged onto a carpeted landing, and when they turned a corner, they could see a door ahead, at the end of a hallway.

Draco could feel a draft coming from that door. There was natural light spilling through the crack beneath it, a promise of the room that had been ripped apart on the other side. They approached with caution.

Two steps away from it, a whispery voice spoke. They all froze.

“ _Harry Potter?”_

“Hang on,” said Granger sharply. She and Potter slipped out of the Cloak, leaving them Disillusioned. She extended her wand and said, “ _Skadus dicoperare! Hominem revelio!”_

She waited a moment, and when nothing happened, she added, “ _Periempta revelio!”_

At this spell, a fine, shimmering mist seemed to descend over the door. After several moments, it cleared away, and Granger muttered, “Strange.”

“What is it?” Potter said.

“Well, there’s nobody here,” Granger said. “This is an Anti-Apparition ward, but it’s odd … it’s only a one-way ward. It’ll prevent someone from Apparating _into_ that room, but once we’re inside, it won’t prevent us from leaving. So it looks like someone’s trying to protect the room, or its contents.”

“Yeah, but what about the voice?” Weasley said impatiently. “Is the voice dangerous?”

“I can’t be completely sure. If there’s a curse on the door, it’s not a common one.”

“Well,” Draco muttered, “the Dark Lord wouldn’t need to resort to common curses.”

“Exactly,” Granger said. “So, just remember: if anything happens, keep your head and Disapparate straight away.” She sounded nervous, as if she were talking to herself rather than to them.

“Right,” Potter said. He stepped up to the door, took a deep breath, and said, “It’s me. Harry Potter.”

The whispery voice spoke again. “What did Albus Dumbledore tell you he saw in the Mirror of Erised?”

Draco had no idea what this meant, but Potter drew in a sharp breath. “Himself,” Potter said, his voice suddenly tense with excitement. “Holding a pair of woolen socks.”

The lock on the door clicked open, but they didn’t move to open it. Potter’s outline had turned back toward them. “Nobody but me and Dumbledore knew that,” he whispered. “You realize what this means?”

“He must have left one of the Order to do this!” Granger whispered back. “In case something happened to him—he must have given an Order member this assignment!”

Yet when Potter turned back to the door, he still didn’t move to open it.

“It’s all right,” Granger whispered.

“I—yeah, I know,” he said. “I … I just feel strange.”

“Don’t blame you, mate,” Weasley said. “Here—want me to go first?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Weasley took the door handle and pushed.

Clean, fresh air rushed through into the hallway, whisking away the damp, musty scent that had accumulated over the better part of two decades. The sun was blazing through the white clouds, and there was something beatific about the light that fell in long shafts into the room before them, a chamber opened forcibly to the elements. They stepped inside, onto a floor that was warped by years of rain and littered with shreds of wallpaper, some that were little more than burned rags, others that seemed to have come down in more recent years. A chest of drawers stood against the wall, heavily burned on the side that faced one particular corner, pale pine on the side that faced away.

And there, in that corner, stood the barest skeleton of a wooden crib. Charred and worn down by decades’ rain, it nonetheless stood upright.

No one moved or spoke for what must have been a full minute. Draco couldn’t help himself: his imagination was already overlaying images on the scene before him—of a flood of green light, of the woman in the photographs crumpling onto the ground in front of the crib, her dark red hair strewn over her lifeless face.

Draco began to hear strange, hard breaths coming from several feet away and realized, with a shock, that Potter was trying, and failing, to restrain tears.

Still, no voice broke the silence, but Draco saw the Disillusioned Gryffindors coalescing before him like the joining pieces of some strange, half-invisible puzzle, Weasley and Granger finding Potter’s outline, Weasley putting an arm around his friend’s shoulder, Granger’s hand taking Potter’s. Draco’s throat was very tight. He felt as if he were intruding. He looked away, out through the destroyed wall, onto the street of Godric’s Hollow where Muggle children were still—bizarrely—running, laughing, playing, as though none of this were happening.

Eventually there was a sniffling sound, the wiping of a hand against a wet face. “I don’t understand,” Potter said gruffly. “There’s … there’s nothing here.”

“I’ll check the drawers,” Weasley said. “Hermione, want to check the shelves?”

Draco watched Potter’s outline move toward the crib, and then heard him let out a startled noise. Granger and Weasley instantly rushed over. Draco, unable to resist his curiosity, joined them.

“That whisper again! It asked how I caught my first Snitch. … In my mouth,” he told the crib. “I nearly swallowed it.”

And the air beneath the crib shimmered like a mirage in the desert, folding away to reveal a small wooden box. Granger made a stifled noise.

“Open it,” Weasley exclaimed. “Go on.”

Potter withdrew the box from beneath the crib and slipped the latch. It came open to reveal three objects: a Golden Snitch, a silver object not unlike a cigarette lighter, and a book whose title read _The Tales of Beedle the Bard._

“There’s a piece of paper,” Granger said. “There—sticking out of the book!”

Potter withdrew the paper and unfolded it. “It’s his will,” he said, scanning it. “Dumbledore’s will. … ‘ _To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my Deluminator, in the hope that he will remember me when he uses it. … To Miss Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.’_ ”

“And the Snitch?” Weasley said.

“ _‘To Harry James Potter,’_ ” Potter read out, “‘ _I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill, and the sword of Godric Gryffindor, as a reminder of the legacy of courage through every dangerous age.’_ And at the bottom … there’s …”

Potter ran a fingertip over the bottom of the will. Draco leaned down to read it. There was a note scrawled at the foot of the page. The writing was shaky, as if written by someone half-asleep.

_15/11 – 2 a.m. – Lillimont Lake_

“That must be to get the sword,” Weasley breathed. “But why didn’t they just put it here with the rest?”

“Would you leave that lying around, Weasley?” Draco said.

“I don’t know if you _can_ leave it lying around,” Potter said, folding the page back up and replacing it in the box. “That sword’s not normal. I gave it to Dumbledore, but it came out of nothing when I needed it. I reckon if this person just left it here, it might go … go back into the school.”

“What do you mean, _into_ the school?” said Granger skeptically.

“I mean the school might sort of—reclaim it, until someone else does something brave. It came to me because I was rescuing Ginny, didn’t it? Where was it before then? I dunno. Maybe I’ve even got to do something to earn it, again.” Potter rose to his feet, the box clutched so tightly in his Disillusioned hands that the charm encompassed the whole box, making it disappear from sight. “Listen,” he said. “I … before we go, I want to … I have an idea.”

“Yeah?” said Weasley.

“I want headquarters to be here. This house.”

There was a long silence.

“Harry,” said Granger tentatively, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Everyone knows where it is, mate,” Weasley said, sounding uncomfortable. “Even if it’s under the Fidelius …”

“ _Especially_ once it’s under the Fidelius,” Draco broke in. “Potter, it’s an entire house. Don’t you think the Death Eaters might notice it’s gone?”

“Yeah,” Weasley said. “Once they see it’s disappeared, they’ll know what’s happened. They’ll be able to line up down the street, just waiting for someone to make a mistake.”

“We won’t make a mistake,” Potter said. “We’ll put the garden, the hedge, everything, within the limits of the Charm. People can Apparate right in and out. It won’t matter that the Death Eaters technically know where it is.”

More silence. Draco shifted. It felt somehow inappropriate to tell Potter no, standing here in the wreckage of a life he’d never really had.

“Listen,” Potter said. “Volde—”

Weasley made a spluttering sound, and Potter let out an exasperated sigh. “ _You-Know-Who_ , then. He’s got one thing right.”

“Yeah?” said Weasley doubtfully. “What’s that?”

“It’s … it’s important where you put things,” Potter said. “It means something. You saw what was written outside, on the sign—people have already visited this house because it reminds them there’s hope for the whole thing to end. I don’t think there’s a better place to put a new headquarters for the Order.”

“Harry,” said Granger timidly, and at once Draco wanted to tell her not to say what she was about to say. “Harry, don’t you think … don’t you think you might be feeling influenced by … by how it feels to see all this?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Potter’s voice was rising.

“Of course you’re right,” she said quickly, “and it would be really meaningful, but don’t you think there could be a more secure, less … less noticeable place? Please, please don’t be angry, Harry—I’m only trying to think about what would be safest.”

There was a long second of silence, and Draco worried that Potter might start yelling, here in the open air, where sound could carry down to the street.

Instead, Potter lifted his Disillusionment Charm. He was still hidden from outside view, standing silhouetted against a remaining crag of wall. He didn’t look angry, but Draco had never seen him look so serious.

“I know we’re frightened,” Potter said. “I know we want to stay safe. But if that was what we cared about the most, we’d give up looking for Horcruxes and go to Siberia. If safety was what we cared about the most, we’d sit back and let the Death Eaters take over Britain, and those people who wrote on that sign would think we’d vanished. And they’d think, all right, well, guess we’d better give up too, then.” He shook his head. “This isn’t reckless, Hermione—and it’s not any more dangerous than any other place we’d be just out of sight. We’re not inviting them in. We’re sending a message that they’re not going to get in again.”

He looked around at the ruined room, at the cinder-encrusted crib, and then back at the others, silently and invisibly watching him. “I … I didn’t ask to be a symbol of all this, all right? But he made me one. _That_ was his message.” Potter pointed toward the crib, toward the impact radius that had buckled the walls, toward the ruin of the nursery. “And now I’m of age, and I’m—I’m _here_ , and I want to send one back.” He swallowed. The small motion was slow and effortful. “My life isn’t just a war memorial. And as long as I’m here, I’m not going to let anyone else’s life become one, either.”

These words were followed by the longest silence yet. Draco felt outside himself. Potter was speaking like a hardened general, like someone who had already accepted death.

It was as if Draco had entered another world, stepping over the Potters’ threshold. Part of him was in revolt, wishing to flee, to turn away, to forget that he had ever seen any of this. The sight before him felt like an omen. Was this the future that awaited him and his parents, the destruction of home and family? If he was caught with the Gryffindors, it certainly would be.

Was this a sorely needed reminder to get away from Potter, Granger, and Weasley—to disrupt the odd kind of comfort that had developed over the preceding weeks, to escape to safety while he still could?

A sniffling sound nearby took him out of his panic. It was Granger. She was trying not to cry.

Draco swallowed. There would be time to think about all this later. He let out a loud, somewhat theatrical sigh. “God, Potter. Do you always do that to win arguments?”

Granger released a wet-sounding little laugh, and Potter’s mouth twitched, then broke into a reluctant half-grin.

“Yeah,” said Weasley, “all right, then. I’m convinced. But let’s get out of here, shall we, before someone sees you standing there?”

The next few days were filled with new purpose, as they experimented with the items Dumbledore had left for the Gryffindors. Between Potter and Weasley performing various experiments on the Snitch and the Deluminator, Draco working with Granger to translate _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ from the original runes, and practice in Occlumency, it was almost a relief that they had no new leads on the Horcruxes. There simply wouldn’t have been time.

Then, three days before they were due to make their trip into Diagon Alley to see the Scavengers’ Guild, their short-term plans were turned on their heads.

“Hermione, Malfoy,” said Weasley, hurrying into the dining room that evening, where Draco was poring over _Beedle_ opposite Granger. “Come here.”

“But—” Granger started to protest, not looking up from her translation.

“No, straight away.”

Granger looked up at Weasley’s strained expression, exchanged a worried look with Draco, and they all hurried into the sitting room. Draco wondered when, exactly, he’d started exchanging worried looks with Hermione Granger.

Potter was pacing before the fireplace, looking agitated, as the Wizarding Wireless blared at a louder volume than usual through the room.

“… the back-to-Hogwarts rush, these measures will serve to protect young witches and wizards from impostors. All those who fail to present their papers at the checkpoint will be Flooed back to their point of origin until such time as they can present proper identification. Aurors will be on standby, as well as representatives from the newly minted Muggle-born Registration Commission. Aurelia Smeckworth reports on-site with more. …”

Weasley tapped the Wireless twice with his wand, and the volume decreased.

“What are they talking about?” Granger said. “What is this?”

“They’re installing security measures in Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, and Platform 9¾,” Weasley said grimly. “For Diagon Alley, you’ve got to Floo in through the Leaky Cauldron and present your papers. I’m sure it’s all really to identify Muggle-borns, like we were expecting. You heard them—the _Muggle-born Registration Commission,_ ” he said, voice dripping disgust.

“Can’t we Apparate into Fred and George’s?” Granger said. “Or Floo into their flat?”

“They’ve warded the place shut,” Potter said glumly. “You’d have to Apparate outside the Leaky Cauldron and go in the front way, which means going through the checkpoint anyway.”

“And the Floo’s a no-go, too,” Weasley said. “The Department of Magical Transportation’s expanded by three hundred and fifty percent, they said. Everything requires prior authorization.”

“But … but …” Granger shook her head. “They can’t _do_ this! How can they? People won’t want to live in a world where they can’t even nip down to the shop or call on a friend’s house without having to prove who they are!”

Draco sank into an armchair. “It won’t be forever,” he muttered. “It’s like Weasley says. It’s to register people. In a few months, once everyone’s registered, and all the unsavories are identified, they’ll say the threat’s passed, and things will go back to normal, mostly.”

“You know what this means, though,” Potter said. “In terms of the Horcrux, I mean.”

“Yes.” Granger sighed and slumped down onto the sofa. “Transfigurations won’t be nearly enough. A simple _Finite Incantatem_ will melt them off—and Probity Probes detect Transfigurations, too. We’ll have to wait for the Polyjuice Potion to finish brewing.”

They all glanced toward the tent’s second, smaller W.C., whose door was permanently shut to contain the foul smell of the Polyjuice Potion. Granger had set up several Stabilizing Charms on the small room’s confines to keep the potion from spilling every time they packed up the tent.

Potter let out a frustrated sound. “I hate waiting. I hate the idea of that Horcrux getting picked up by someone and disappearing.”

“It’s already had over two years to disappear, if it got chucked out in fifth year,” Weasley pointed out. “It’s only a few more weeks.”

“I suppose.” Potter sighed. “All right, so, we’ll go next month, then.”

“September 22nd,” said Granger, already turning through a planner that had suddenly appeared in her hands. Draco was almost amused to see it, crammed with writing as if she were preparing for O.W.L.s all over again.

“Who are we supposed to Polyjuice ourselves into, though?” said Weasley.

“We need to go together,” Potter said, “so, a family really will be best this time.”

“Hogwarts term will already have started by then,” Granger said. “So we can’t use anyone we know, can we? They should be at school on September 22nd.”

“A family with kids under Hogwarts age, then,” said Weasley. “Or kids just out of Hogwarts, who haven’t moved out yet.”

“Good thinking,” Potter said. “And we’ll want it to be a family who can go through the checkpoint without being asked too many questions. A … well, a pure-blood family.”

Draco sighed. He knew they were all going to look at him in unison even before they did it. And the worst thing was, he already had an answer ready.

“Pansy Parkinson,” he said, somewhat reluctantly. “She has three younger brothers. They’re seven, nine, and ten, so, they wouldn’t be at Hogwarts.”

Weasley sniggered.

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Weasley, trying and failing to clear his expression. “It’s just pretty funny, knowing that Ms. Better-Than-You Parkinson was an accident.”

Draco shot him a disgusted look. Actually, Pansy’s mother had been pressured into having Pansy when she was nineteen, at her very traditional grandmother’s request, to _prove her fertility—_ a fact that had caused years’ worth of bitter conflict between Pansy and her mother. But Draco wasn’t about to tell Weasley that.

“You’ve been to the Parkinsons’ house?” said Potter. “Can you get us in there?”

Draco hesitated. Now that he’d said it, he was regretting it. Could this endanger the Parkinsons? In theory, it shouldn’t take more than a Sleeping Charm, or something similar, and a couple hours, and the Parkinsons would wake up thinking they’d slept in, none the wiser. In practice, however …

“Look,” Draco said, “if you do something to make yourselves stand out in Diagon Alley, you’d better be prepared to give away that it’s you and not the Parkinsons doing it. I’m not … you’re not …”

 _I’m not going to be responsible for Pansy’s family getting hurt,_ he thought, but he couldn’t make himself say it.

He found himself looking, almost unconsciously, at Granger. She nodded, as if she’d plucked the thought out of his head. He glanced away, frowning. He hadn’t said he was comfortable with her using Legilimency on him … but he _had_ looked at her, as if hoping she would do it. For whatever reason.

“We can make sure of that,” she said. “We can take precautions to make the Parkinsons seem like real victims if something goes wrong. I’m sure the Death Eaters will be glad for an excuse to make us seem unhinged and dangerous, like a threat to society.”

“They’ll love that,” Potter said with a humorless laugh. “The idea of us preying on innocent pure-bloods. Front page of the _Prophet,_ probably.”

“And that’s just if things go wrong,” Granger said. “We know what day we’re doing it, and we have weeks’ notice. We should be able to control the circumstances very tightly.”

“Hang on,” said Weasley, looking at Draco blankly.

“Yes?” Draco said.

“You said, if _you_ do something to make _yourselves_ stand out.”

He didn’t elaborate. Draco arched an eyebrow. “Yeah, Weasley. Would you like me to restrict myself to one-syllable words in future?”

Weasley didn’t even go red. “You’re trying to get out of coming,” he said.

“Get out of it?” Draco said. “Excuse me, when did I ever suggest I _was_ going to come?”

But now, Draco realized, Potter and Granger were both looking at him like he’d done something horrible, too. “What?” he said indignantly, looking between them. “I’d prefer not to go dancing into the middle of Diagon Alley unless absolutely necessary. Would either of you care to tell me what _use_ I would be to this little mission, exactly?”

“I dunno,” Potter said, sounding heated, “but it’d be pretty annoying to get there and realize we _do_ need you for something, wouldn’t it?”

Draco shook his head. “Potter, that’s not my problem.”

“Merlin’s pants.” Weasley let out a disbelieving laugh. “I knew it. I _knew_ it. Didn’t I bloody tell you he was going to get cold feet?” He was directing this, for some reason, at Granger.

“I haven’t got cold feet,” Draco snapped. “It’s not cold feet when you’re not even involved in something in the first place! You three have clearly been making assumptions about what I’m here for.”

“Oh, have we?” Potter snapped back. “What _are_ you here for, Malfoy? A vacation?”

“No, troll-brain, I’m here to get back to my parents, obviously!”

“If that was really all you cared about,” Granger said, “why didn’t you stay put in one of the places we’ve sheltered? We could have come back and found you when we had new information about them.”

Draco felt a strange twist in his stomach. Granger was staring down at her planner, now, rather than at him, and she didn’t sound angry. Her voice was low and controlled.

But she _was_ angry, or if not angry, something close. He could tell. _That’s her fault for making assumptions,_ Draco thought wildly. _It’s her fault for wanting me to—to—_

To help them? Well, he had helped them already, so why they couldn’t be satisfied?

“What, exactly,” he said, “do you _want_ from me?”

Weasley sighed. He didn’t even look angry or incredulous anymore—maybe resigned, which somehow felt a thousand times worse.

“If you don’t know by now,” said Weasley, “I’m not going to tell you.”

He and Potter left the room together. Draco sat in silence for a long moment, stewing in circular thoughts. All the time, the Potter cottage was at the back of his mind, the blasted edifice, the grim and hollow look in Potter’s eyes as he talked around what he’d lost.

“Some sort of declaration of loyalty, I suppose,” Draco muttered.

“Mm?” Granger said, looking over at him. She’d been frowning at the carpet.

“That’s what Weasley wants from me. A declaration of loyalty to the Order of the Phoenix, and for me to renounce everything I’ve ever done, and … and some kind of groveling apology, right? And for me to toss my whole life into fighting the Dark Lord like I’ve got no sense of self-preservation, like the three of you. So, basically, for me to be absolutely nothing like myself.”

Granger didn’t say anything. Her silence only made Draco feel more defensive.

“I told them, I _said_ I’d help you with the Parkinsons. What, that’s not enough?” He shook his head and shoved his hair back. “I don’t even really want to do it. I bet I’ll be putting Pansy in danger, her whole family, and for what? For you three and your—and your—but I’m doing it! And that’s still not enough? What’s going to be enough, then? When I join up? When I put myself in mortal danger for you three and your cause? When I die, would that make up for everything?”

“We’d never ask you to die,” said Granger quietly, seriously. “Ron’s angry you’re not going into Diagon Alley, that’s all.”

Draco let out a frustrated sound and moved forward in the armchair until he was on the edge of its seat. “You don’t understand, Granger. It’s all the same thing, don’t you get it? There are no degrees here. Going into Diagon Alley has the same risks as hunting down the Dark Lord. I’m … I’m not being paranoid, all right, I’m not being dramatic. It’s death, or nothing.” He shook his head hard. “You haven’t spent time with—you don’t know the Death Eaters. They don’t reserve the Killing Curse for special occasions.”

She didn’t speak for a long time, but when she glanced over at him, he thought her expression looked softer. Some of the twisted feeling in his stomach eased, and he wasn’t sure why. _What,_ he thought with slight irony, did he really care whether _Hermione Granger_ thought he was spineless?

He was startled to realize that he knew the answer to that question. He did care, actually. He didn’t want her to think he was a coward.

 _That’s because I’m_ not _a coward,_ he told himself, annoyed. It had nothing to do with her opinion and everything to do with accuracy.

Granger moved her planner from her lap to the sofa beside her. He eyed the lines of text all the way down its pages, her handwriting miniscule from years of overperformance on essays.

“I’ve been wondering,” she said. “What did you think of when you put on the diadem?”

Draco’s slightly open mouth closed hard, so that his teeth clicked together. Granger met his eyes.

“Stop,” he said, instantly looking away from her. “Stop doing that.”

“Stop what?”

“I know what you’re doing.”

“I … I’m not trying to use Legilimency on you, Malfoy.” She sounded surprised. “I’m not very good at it. I definitely can’t do it nonverbally, let alone wandlessly.”

“But—” He frowned, confused. Hadn’t she just seemed to know exactly what he was thinking about Pansy’s family?

He composed himself and shook his head. The point was that she couldn’t see inside his head. Good: everything was still private. So, why was he blabbing to her about the Death Eaters? He didn’t _have_ to say anything. “I told you before,” he said. “Nothing important.”

“Fine,” she said, standing. “I’m going to go back to working on the runes.”

“Fine,” he said. “So will I.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Oh, stop being a martyr, Granger, you’ll be up all night finishing _The Fountain of Fair Fortune._ ”

She sniffed, but didn’t object. So he slouched into the chair opposite her at the dining table, and they worked on their translations, and every so often he thought he felt her eyes on him, but he never looked up.

* * *

The tent was frosty for a few days after that, but they had so many things to distract them now that even Ron couldn’t seem to hold the grudge properly. Harry threw yet another question into the mix by informing them that Gregorovitch was dead, and Voldemort—whom they’d started referring to exclusively as You-Know-Who, as Ron’s nerves had reached such an advanced state about it—was now pursuing a thief. Harry had described this thief to them with nearly no identifying information, though, so Hermione insisted they shelve the question, to his annoyance.

Once _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ was fully translated, they turned their attention to the Parkinson transformation problem. Hermione, Harry, and Ron asked Malfoy every question they could imagine, outlining every detail of the Parkinson estate and what they would need to do to break in, use the Floo to Diagon Alley, and make their exit without being seen.

The plan was to deliver a batch of delicate chocolate-dipped madeleines, the Parkinson family favorite, the evening before. These were expensive cookies from Calaphor’s Confections, whose icing played and swirled in enticing patterns upon their golden surfaces: fireworks, flowers opening, raindrops colliding with a sugary blue pond. Ron choked on his breakfast and had to be rescued by Harry with a quick _Anapneo_ when Malfoy told them exactly how much a box of five said cookies would cost.

They would fill each cookie with a delayed-reactant Sleepiness Solution. Six hours after ingestion, the eater would fall into fourteen hours of deep and dreamless sleep. The Gryffindors would come in through Pansy’s bedroom window—which she never locked, in order to sneak out during holidays—and Floo out from the Parkinsons’ house at eight in the morning. They would, if all went to plan, return to Diagon Alley by ten, with hours to spare before the Parkinsons woke up.

Still, there were details to work out, loopholes to close. The Parkinsons’ house-elf would need to be distracted, and Malfoy had told them that the gardener also came on Thursday mornings, an inconvenient coincidence. They needed to brew the Sleepiness Solution to order, too, to ensure that they could delay its effects by the correct amount of time. Hermione, who was moving into the final stages of the Polyjuice brew, left this other potion to Harry and Malfoy’s care, which resulted in the three boys taking a lot of unintended naps.

Meanwhile, slightly frustrated that _Beedle the Bard_ was of no immediate use, Hermione had returned to practicing the Fidelius Charm. In her homework planner, she blocked off two hours a day for it: between three and five o’clock, she wore the diadem a little way away from the tent, whether woodland, clearing, or mountainside, and practiced through the various elements of the charm.

These hours quickly became the best hours of her day. With the diadem, she finally felt that she was the witch her teachers and friends seemed to think she was. She felt cool-headed and confident; she felt logical, unflustered, endlessly capable. With the diadem on, she was finally deserving of positive regard, and so it was almost maddening that these hours were spent alone, where no one could see this better version of her.

In fact, she began to feel, in the hours that she wasn’t wearing the diadem, its absence. At first, these feelings alarmed her—was this a dependency?—but no, the feelings had nothing to do with the diadem, really. They were about her own innumerable flaws, her own countless imperfections. The diadem, like a light shined into a dark place, had helped her to see what was already horrible about herself, what had always been horrible. And she’d known it all along, hadn’t she, in some quiet, unacknowledged corner of her heart? The truth was that she was incompetent, and only managed to get lucky in front of other people, so she had fooled them into thinking she was competent; the truth was that she was self-righteous, condescending, and insufferable, and Harry and Ron only put up with her because they felt sorry for her; the truth was that her parents were disappointed in her and probably always would be; the truth was that she was deeply unattractive and unable to compensate for it with all the other things she’d tried to use as compensation, which was why Ron had never done anything resembling commitment and also why Harry seemed embarrassed whenever they had a moment approaching chemistry; the truth was that she was a pathetic little Mudblood who would never belong in the Wizarding World and could only ever hope to belong by riding the coattails of greater wizards, real wizards.

Hermione didn’t speak about the diadem, or these important realizations, to the others. She knew they wouldn’t understand, and she knew that any mention of this kind of thing would alarm them, since it was a Horcrux, and then they might try to take the diadem away from her, and the idea was painful—not because she was so attached to the diadem, no, she wasn’t _reliant_ on it (wasn’t she very strictly confining her usage of it to two hours a day?), it was just that it was a useful tool for self-improvement. This afternoon, a week into September, hidden away in her secluded copse to practice, she’d spent nearly the whole two hours trying other spells than the Fidelius, because she didn’t want to lie to her friends, and if they asked if she was ready to perform the Fidelius, she had to be able to tell them no, so that she could keep working with the diadem, working to become a better witch, a better person, no longer a failure. And surely this was proof that everything was normal, and that she was fine, because she was still doing things like worrying about lying to Harry and Ron, which was a normal thing to feel.

“Granger.”

Hermione whirled around, her wand still at the ready. But it was just Malfoy, standing between the trees. She lowered her wand. He was looking at the diadem with an expression that she didn’t like. He had never told her, after all, what the diadem did for him. Was he jealous of her? Did he plan to take the diadem for himself? She would have to make sure to keep it safely in her bag, where he couldn’t get at it.

“Yes?” she said.

“Potter’s made dinner. It smells repulsive, so, Weasley’s requesting you fix it.”

Hermione let out a laugh. It was higher, sharper than her usual laugh, she could hear that. She preferred this new laugh. “All right,” she said, approaching.

“Are you trying to learn the whole spellbook?” Malfoy said. “You’ve been practicing for weeks.”

“None of your business.”

Malfoy glanced over at her, one eyebrow raised. She wasn’t imagining it: his eyes _were_ lingering on the diadem. She touched it, feeling defensive, her fingertips reveling in the cool texture of the silver.

“Helpful, isn’t it?” he said.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes,” she said.

“Do you think you can do the charm, yet?”

“No.”

They had stopped outside the tent. Malfoy raised his eyebrows at her. “You’re not planning on wearing the thing to dinner, are you?”

Hermione considered for a long moment. One side of his mouth was curled, and she couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not. Would anyone notice if she wore the diadem to dinner? She didn’t want to take it off, really. On the other hand, she didn’t want to draw more attention to the diadem than necessary. Malfoy eyeing it this way felt questionable enough; the idea of Harry and Ron doing the same was unappealing.

“No,” she said. “I suppose not.”

Malfoy watched her, waiting. She lifted her hands to her head and touched the diadem. She ran her fingers over the silver filigree, over the sapphires. She pressed her fingertips into the diadem and shifted it back and forth on her brow, not wanting to lift it, wanting to leave it there until the coolness and clarity sank in so deep that they could never be removed.

Finally, with an effort that felt like she was lifting something far heavier, she took the diadem from her head.

A sudden headache skewered her behind her left eye. She took an unsteady step and hunched over, pressing her hand to her forehead, the diadem still clenched in her other hand.

“Granger?” Malfoy took a step toward her.

She wanted to move back, to hold the diadem close to her chest, to make sure he didn’t snatch it. But that wary look on his face told her that she shouldn’t be so obvious. No. It was better that he not realize she felt protective about it. Much better that way.

She forced herself to straighten up. “Sorry,” she said. “Headache, it’s been bothering me all afternoon.” And she dropped the diadem carelessly into the beaded bag as if it meant nothing.

Her thoughts were on the diadem throughout dinner, and on Malfoy. She watched him for clues of suspicion, but he seemed perfectly normal, sitting with his rigid posture in his chair, narrow face serious, grey eyes glittering coolly, only contributing when he could sound clever.

As dinner wore on, the anxiety began to pull at her again, the awareness of her inadequacy. She wanted to read something, but what good was reading when she would never really come to anything? She felt jittery and sad, and unsure how to alleviate it.

“Hermione?” Harry said.

“Oh—I’m sorry, what?”

“I said, are you all right? You look a bit peaky.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said at once, making herself smile, because he didn’t really care, after all, he was only asking because he felt sorry for her; that was the basis of their whole friendship, wasn’t it? He and Ron had turned back for the girl crying in the bathroom, because they were brave and good, and she was pathetic. But it was all right. She would put up a good show until tomorrow, when, between the hours of three and five p.m., she could focus again on her self-improvement.

* * *

Draco tapped quietly on the door. He had cast _Muffliato_ down the hall, and he was fairly certain Granger was asleep, but caution was important.

“Come in, Hermione,” called Potter’s voice.

“It’s not Hermione,” Draco said.

A slight pause. Then the door cracked open, and Weasley stuck his face through, frowning. “What?”

“I need to talk with you,” Draco said, “obviously, as I’m standing here. Now, let me in, would you?”

Weasley sighed, then retreated. He hopped up onto his bed, his maroon pajamas clashing gloriously with the red-orange bedspread.

Draco shut the door behind himself. This was the largest bedroom of the flat, with two full beds, one for each twin. Draco had initially thought it was odd that two grown men would _want_ to share sleeping quarters, until he’d seen the stacks of notebooks written by the pair of them at all hours of the night. They would presumably have spent half their life going from room to room to collaborate if they’d separated themselves.

“What’s up?” said Potter, sitting on the other bed, sounding wary.

“It’s Granger.”

“What about her?” Weasley asked, suddenly alert. “Is she all right?”

“I don’t know,” Draco said. “I can’t tell.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s that diadem. Something’s—something’s wrong with it.”

Weasley and Potter exchanged an uneasy glance.

“When I went to get her for dinner earlier, she was just … she seemed off. I can’t describe it.”

“She did take it off, though, right?” said Weasley.

“Yeah, but she sort of buckled over when she did it. She said it was a headache and obviously thought she was doing really well at lying.”

“She did seem weird over dinner,” Potter said doubtfully. “And she’s been quiet during Occlumency lessons the past few days.”

Draco crossed his arms. “Yeah. She’s got to stop using it.”

Weasley was looking guilty now. “You don’t think … I mean, this _is_ new, right? She’s been wearing it every day for two weeks. I thought it was all right because she’s seemed so normal. I mean, she hasn’t lost her memory at all, she hasn’t gone all scared and quiet like Ginny did in second year … and it’s only two weeks. It took Ginny ages to get influenced by it.”

Draco thought of the way Granger had touched the diadem before all this, the way she’d looked at it almost tenderly. “I don’t know,” he said again.

“Well,” Potter said firmly, “we can’t let it get any further. We’ll talk to her tomorrow, all of us.”

“Yeah. Good,” Draco said. “But don’t … don’t mention that it was me who brought it up, all right?”

“What?” Weasley looked nonplussed. “Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Draco muttered, yet again. “Just don’t.”

True to their word, neither Potter nor Weasley mentioned his role. Over lunch, Potter said, “Listen, Hermione, Ron and I have been thinking about that diadem.”

Granger’s head jerked up. She looked shifty. “What about it?” she said, sounding more present than she had in a conversation in days.

“We just reckon it might be good if you took a break from it, that’s all,” said Weasley with a shrug.

“Did I do something wrong?”

This was such a strange response that Draco exchanged a bewildered look with both Potter and Weasley.

“Er—no,” Potter said slowly, “it’s just … to be safe, you know? It is a Horcrux, after all. I mean, I know it’s useful, but it’s still …”

“Oh, no, Harry,” Granger said. “Please, not right now. I think I’m really close with the Fidelius Charm. I can’t take a break now.”

Potter bit his lip and exchanged a quick glance with Weasley. “How close?” he asked.

Granger thought for a second. “Three days,” she said. “Three more days, and I really think I’ll have it. We can try it this Friday on the cottage itself. Is that all right?”

No one answered. She looked around at Draco, Potter, and Weasley, and let out a sigh. “I’m really sorry if I’ve seemed distracted. But I’m so frustrated about that book Dumbledore left me. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do with it. And I keep wishing I could be more help with Occlumency, too.”

“Oh, c’mon, Hermione, it’s all right,” said Weasley bracingly. “None of us know what Dumbledore was playing at with the things he left us, do we? And I’ve been useless for Harry’s Occlumency lessons for over a month.”

Weasley was sounding relieved, and as Potter engaged in consoling Granger, he looked slightly less wary, too, but Draco didn’t trust anything that had come out of her mouth. She’d said it all very convincingly, but he kept thinking of the way she’d dug her fingers into the diadem, hesitating, hedging, before being able to dislodge it from her head.

If this was the diadem trying to play them all, he had to find a way to stay a step ahead.

“All right, all right,” Draco said, interrupting Potter. “Yeah, very reassuring, we’re all really useless and have no idea what the old man was thinking when he wrote his will. The point is, Granger, you’ve been wearing the diadem for two weeks. I think we should see some results _now_.”

Potter and Weasley both looked annoyed. Granger didn’t. For a split instant, there was an odd calculating look on her face that, frankly, unnerved Draco, but he continued to pretend not to notice anything out of the ordinary.

“I don’t want to waste another afternoon like the one in the woods,” she said evenly. “I’ve told you I need three days, Malfoy, and if you don’t like it, you’re welcome to try the charm yourself.”

Draco gave an extravagant roll of his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “Have your practice hours, then. But I’m going to watch. I think somebody should be making sure we’re all actually as productive as we’re pretending to be.” He gave her his best sneer and stood up, leaving the table before she could argue.

That afternoon, diadem in her hands, she tried to talk him out of following her. She tried avenue after avenue of argument, trying to pressure him to clean the kitchen, to help Potter and Weasley with the Parkinson plans, to check on the Polyjuice and the Sleepiness Solution, to draw up a lesson plan for Occlumency going forward, and on and on. Draco didn’t let a single point take hold. He yawned often, checked his extremely expensive watch more than once, and finally Granger relented, her face strangely rigid as she ported _Charms of the Ancient Days_ and the diadem out of the tent.

It was a crisp, sunny September day. Draco sat on a large, flat rock, sunning himself like a cat while he watched Granger practicing. Every so often, she cast an irritated look back at him.

The second day was much the same. Granger tried to wriggle out of supervision. Draco insisted, embodying obnoxious obliviousness so completely that Weasley cornered him after dinner to ask him exactly what he was playing at. “I’m keeping an eye on her,” Draco muttered, “and I’m trying to do it without being completely obvious, so shut up.”

On the third day, he decided to play his hand. At the end of her practice session, before she had taken the diadem from her head, he told her, “The charm looks good.”

Granger looked suspicious. “Thank you,” she said.

“So, what are you planning on doing after you pretend to try it tomorrow?”

She froze. Her eyes flicked over to the tent—they were, yet again, in a patch of anonymous woodland—and back to Draco. “What … what are you talking about?” she said hoarsely.

He lifted his shoulders. “You want to keep wearing that diadem. _Those_ two in there want you to stop. And if you do the Fidelius Charm correctly, they’ll make you stop. So, you’re planning to throw the attempt.” He paused, then added, for good measure, “It’s what I’d do.”

Granger swallowed hard. She looked deeply disturbed. As she pushed a straggly lock of hair out of her face, she whispered, “I’m sorry”—not to him, but to herself.

Hearing that whisper, Draco felt a new, cold feeling. Not alarm, not unease, but real fear. What was it doing to her? What was it telling her?

Whatever it was, he had to make her think he was on her side—her side, and the diadem’s, together.

“So, you … you’re …” She looked at him with a glazed kind of distrust. “You’re not trying to stop me?”

“Why should I? I’m a Slytherin, Granger. We don’t say no to a bit of extra power, because we’re not idiots.”

There was a sudden gleam in her eye. A smirk pulled at her mouth. Draco’s stomach lurched, hard. That expression wasn’t hers at all.

But in the next second she seemed back inside herself. “Right,” she said slowly. “I’m … I _do_ want to do the Fidelius properly, Malfoy. That’s the reason for all this.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s part of it, I bet.” Draco’s mind was racing, still caught on that gleam, that smirk. The Horcrux was already displacing her inside her own body. For split seconds, yes, but still.

“You know,” he said casually, “if you do the Fidelius Charm right, though, we could probably convince the others that the diadem isn’t dangerous. They’re too busy to notice much right now. If you keep acting normally, the way you’ve been acting, I bet they won’t care at all that you keep wearing it.”

Granger bit her lip. “ _You_ noticed. You must have noticed me acting differently. I must have done something wrong.”

“Granger, Granger,” he drawled. “I’ve been paying attention to the _diadem._ No, you’ve been doing really well.”

“Really well?” she repeated, sounding slightly choked.

“Really well,” he said again. “Yeah. Do the Fidelius Charm properly. The more I think about it, the more I think that’s the way to convince those two that you should keep wearing the diadem. Good results, see?”

Granger seemed lost in thought for a while. She didn’t answer, staring off at the distant glint of a lake through the trees.

“Well,” Draco said. “You know where I stand, now, anyway. You’d better take that off before the others see you wearing it. It’s—” He checked his watch. “Two past the hour, after all.”

Over dinner, Granger’s eyes kept flicking nervously onto Draco. He held her eyes when she looked at him, but didn’t let himself seem perturbed at all by what he’d seen. There was no doubt that they needed the Fidelius Charm performed. If they could just get it done before the diadem got a further hold, then they could take that tiara and stick it in a locked box until they had the means to destroy it.

But if the diadem convinced her to throw the Fidelius Charm the next day, Draco didn’t know what they could do. He didn’t dare communicate any of this to Potter or Weasley, either, because Granger watched him from the moment he got up from the dinner table to the moment he retreated into the guest bedroom.

He lay awake late that night, unable to sleep, or to stop thinking about Granger’s stricken little whisper, _I’m sorry._

It was nearly one in the morning when he heard it: the unmistakable creak of a floorboard outside.

Draco’s heart dropped. He suddenly understood how the diadem had taken hold so quickly, despite being worn—seemingly—only two hours a day.

Draco stood, took his wand from the bedside, and Silenced his own footsteps. He Silenced his bedroom door, and its hinges, before he opened it. And across the darkened apartment he saw her. Granger, sitting up unnaturally straight, her back to him, the diadem upon her head.

He knew without needing to see her face that she was asleep. He knew that the diadem, unable to wrest control from her waking mind, had seeped into her subconscious instead. He wondered how many nights of the past two and a half weeks she had been sent tottering through the apartment, drawn irresistibly to the beaded bag she always left on the mantel, sleepwalking into the grip of its contents.

He knew instinctively that if she turned around and saw him, she would attack, and she would do so not with her own dueling acumen but with the lethal skill of Lord Voldemort. He would have exactly one chance to take it from her.

He closed the Silenced door and ducked down so that he could barely see the crown of her head and the point of the tiara. Then he crept through the apartment. Halfway through, he remembered to silence his breaths as well as his footsteps. She was sitting as motionless as something made of stone, as if she wasn’t even breathing.

He emerged from the living room. She was so close ahead now, her head fixed forward as if she were gazing into a fire that did not burn in the empty grate. The moonlight was glowing on the diadem’s sapphires.

Draco straightened up. He steeled himself, and then—in one clean motion—his hand shot out and swept the diadem from Granger’s head.

She collapsed as if he had struck her dead.

Draco’s heart seemed to stop. He took a sharp breath and vaulted the sofa, letting the diadem clatter to the ground. “Granger,” he tried to say, before remembering he still had to lift the Silencing Charms. When he could speak again, he said, “Granger!” and seized one of her shoulders, shaking her. “Granger?”

Her eyes came open slowly, and relief flooded through him. She was alive—alive, if groggy and confused. “Malfoy?” she said. “What am … what’s …” She looked around the sitting room, and her eyes fixed on the diadem. She still didn’t seem to understand.

“It was controlling you in your sleep, Granger,” Draco said. Her eyes traveled downward, and he realized he was still holding very tightly to her shoulder. He let go immediately, feeling a strange rush of heat, and sat hard on the sofa next to her as she straightened up, rubbing her head.

“We’re putting that thing away,” he said. “None of us is touching it again.”

Granger froze, then turned to him, stricken. “No,” she whispered. “You don’t understand. I need it.”

“You can do the Fidelius Charm yourself.”

“I … _I can’t!_ ” The sentence burst out of her, and suddenly she was crying; the trance seemed to have shattered. “I can’t do it right … I can’t do anything right …”

“Granger,” said Draco, bewildered. “What are you— _what?_ ”

“All I do is fail over and over again—in third year, all the Dementors were coming and Harry tried to teach me, he tried—and then, in fifth year, in the Department of Mysteries, I stopped paying attention and I nearly died, and Harry could have died too, trying to save me—and Dumbledore—Dumbledore—I was right there, I could have …”

“Granger. … Granger?” Draco’s heart was beating very hard. He had no idea what to do. She was shaking harder and harder, muttering through sobs so that he could hardly hear her, and he was still shaky himself from the residual panic, the thought that he’d somehow killed her in the moment he’d taken the diadem from her head.

“ _Hermione,_ ” he said.

She startled and looked over at him.

She was wearing the same oversized T-shirt she’d worn in her house, that Muggle shirt. He could see now that it had the name _Granger Dental Studio_ on it, with an image of a smiling tooth, a logo that had faded so much over time that it was nearly invisible.

He couldn’t believe that this was the insecurity the diadem had managed to play on. He couldn’t believe _Hermione bloody Granger_ was actually, seriously, legitimately insecure about her magical aptitude.

“Look,” he said, “did you know, last year, that all the first-years knew who you were?”

“Wh-what?” she said, looking startled.

“Yeah. Because you got so many ‘Outstanding’ O.W.L.s that the teachers were telling first-years about you, by name. God, even the Slytherin first-years used to talk about you like you were the second coming of Rowena Ravenclaw, and then the added insult that you’re _not even a Ravenclaw_. Absolutely appalling.” Draco shook his head in disgust. “You know Goyle talks about you all the time? You know he’d kill to have brains like yours? And it’s not just him. It’s bloody everyone who talks about you like that. You’re not actually big-headed enough to think you know better than every single person in Hogwarts, are you?”

“I … but they don’t know—didn’t I just tell you, when it really mattered, I couldn’t …”

“When it really mattered?” Draco said. “Oh, so I suppose it doesn’t really _matter_ that you’ve been setting up protective enchantments wherever we go, or that you’ve learned those spells to check for hexes and curses, or that you packed ingredients for—apparently—every potion in the world. I suppose it didn’t really _matter_ when my whole family nearly got killed in Grimmauld Place and you Apparated us out.”

“If I hadn’t Apparated _into_ Grimmauld Place in the first place, there would’ve been no need to …”

“Stop.” Draco gave her an unimpressed look. “Now you’re just parroting my mother, and she’s never happy.”

Granger let out a small, surprised laugh.

“What?”

“I didn’t think … well, you always get so angry when people say anything about your mother.”

“Yeah, because that’s other people. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Granger sniffled and wiped her face on her shoulder. “I’m just so afraid of … of not being good enough to _do_ anything. This charm … we really need it, and so of course I can’t do it. It’s like the second I know something awful will happen if I fail, all I can do is fail. I want to do important things, but I feel like if I _am_ good at anything, it’s things like—like quizzes about Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color, and not what’s really important.”

Draco kneaded his temple with his fingertips. This person she was describing only seemed tangentially related to herself, but he knew it was useless to say that.

His eyes moved back onto the diadem, which glimmered innocently in the pool of moonlight where it had fallen. “What else did it tell you?” he asked, his voice quiet and slightly rough.

“It … it didn’t _tell_ me …” She still sounded slightly defensive.

“What else have you been thinking the past two weeks, then.”

Granger swallowed and pushed her hands over her hair, moving the mass of frizzy curls back until, for once, he could see her full profile, her ears, the curve of her jaw. “That … that Harry and Ron don’t … that I’m not good enough for them, that they think I’m annoying and they’re just putting up with me. And, I mean, I could give you lots of evidence for that, Ron and I fight all the time and I know Harry just doesn’t like me as much as he likes Ron. I know I need them more than either of them needs me. And—that my parents are disappointed in me, which … I _know_ they just wanted a normal daughter, I know they had all these plans for what my life was going to be … and of course, that I’m—I have to compensate for … for things.”

“What things.”

“You know. Being Muggle-born. Being, well, not very pretty.”

Her voice was small and ashamed. Draco felt as if he’d been elbowed in the stomach. He didn’t know what to do or say to any of these things. _I’m sorry?_ What would that do? Disagreement with all of it? If she really believed these things, what would _his_ opinion change?

The diadem continued to gleam, and he hated it. The hate felt more productive.

“You know what happens when I put that _thing_ on?” he said with distaste, unable to fully hide his anger at the diadem.

“What?” Granger asked.

“I know all about the people in the room.”

For some reason, Granger’s cheeks had colored. “You mean Legilimency?”

“No. I mean, I could always tell Weasley was insecure about his money problems and Potter had a complex about being the odd one out, but with the diadem on, I mean, I could—I could rip people wide open with it, if I wanted. It made it so easy to see where the power is, and where people feel powerless. And Weasley looks at you and I can see he’s in love with you. Probably has been for years. And Potter looks at you both and—” Draco grimaced. “He’d just die if anything happened to either of you. God, it’s like reading his diary, or something. All three of you are like that. I don’t know anything about your parents, but—” He jerked his head toward Potter and Weasley’s bedroom door— “ _those_ two would take the Killing Curse for you, all right? For Merlin’s sake, it doesn’t even take the diadem to see it. They’ve all but offered multiple times over the last few weeks, haven’t they?”

Granger considered this for a while. Then she asked, “Why didn’t you want to talk about that?”

He let out a short, bitter laugh. “Well, you see, Granger, it also works on me. And as it turns out, I don’t particularly want to intuit what people are thinking or feeling about me, or where I stand in the room.” He let out a disgusted noise. “I put it on and I could see it all so clearly, what everyone … and a couple years ago I would’ve thought it was great, or funny, I would’ve loved using it … but I just wanted to … I don’t know.” He shook his head, looking out the window at the surrounding forest. “Wanted to get out. Not participate. Not have to be thought about, or exist.”

His voice was scratchy and tired. He wanted to go abroad from himself. That was all.

“I’ve felt that way before.” Granger settled against the opposite side of the sofa, hugging a soft throw pillow to her middle. “I went to a Muggle primary school, obviously, and it was awful. Not the school— _I_ was awful. I hate thinking about the way I was as a kid. Always jeering at other people for getting anything the slightest bit wrong. So, obviously I had no friends, and when I got my Hogwarts letter, I thought, well, this is my chance to leave all that behind me.”

A smile pulled at her mouth, and Draco knew she was remembering opening that letter, the one he’d waited for so breathlessly the summer before first year, too.

“So,” she went on, “I prepared and prepared and prepared. It wasn’t just a new school, but an entirely new world, so I thought I could just—just strip it all off and leave everything I used to be behind, and I’d be so good at magic that everyone would want to be my friend. But then I got to Hogwarts, and I was still really lonely, and I heard Ron saying one day that I had no friends, and it sort of made me realize I’d brought my old self along with me. I couldn’t just unbuckle her and throw her by the wayside. It was still me.”

She lifted her shoulders. Met his eyes. “Sorry, Malfoy. I don’t think you can get out of it. What you used to be.”

“I know,” Draco said, settling against his own end of the sofa. “It was just a feeling.”

There was a quiet silence. They regarded each other, the diadem discarded, forgotten for a moment.

“Anyway,” Granger said, “if you could intuit what we were all thinking and feeling, then it can’t have been all bad.”

“Yeah? Why not?”

“I was in the room, too.”

Draco considered her. She looked calm. She looked, for the first time in several days, like herself.

“Yeah,” he said. As he’d worn the diadem, he’d analyzed her the way he’d analyzed the others, and the way her body had been angled toward him had meant cautious interest, and the tilt of her head had meant openness and consideration, and the way her cheeks had colored when he’d met her eyes had meant something he’d definitely never have expected from Hermione Granger. He’d read wariness and lingering hostility all over Potter and Weasley, but in her …

“Sort of seemed like you didn’t hate me, Granger.”

Her lips pressed together in one of those suppressed smiles that were starting to feel familiar to him, that were starting to feel satisfying to elicit. “No,” she said. “I don’t hate you.”

“I don’t hate you, either,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumbl away with me :)](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com/)


	10. The Scavengers' Guild

Hermione was quiet as they packed up the next morning. She’d slept poorly, startling awake again and again with the fear that she’d find herself sleepwalking toward the door, one hand outstretched. She finally understood the feeling that Ginny had tried to articulate years ago—the feeling of being contaminated.

Luckily, no one seemed much in the mood to talk. It was still dark outside, and the moon was low, washing the tent’s crimson fabric into a dark gray. They’d risen well before dawn, hoping for the village streets to be empty so they could attempt the charm in private. The Potter cottage was on the outskirts of Godric’s Hollow, which would help, but it was best to be safe.

Hermione had convinced Malfoy not to tell Harry and Ron about what the diadem had done to her. She felt ashamed even to imagine confessing that she’d made such a glaring error—that she’d allowed the Horcrux to penetrate so deeply into her mind. They would want to know what the diadem had made her do and think, and she didn’t think she could recount it all again. Once had been painful enough.

She kept glancing up from her bag, where she was packing away the tent’s stakes, to look at Malfoy. Every silvery strand of his hair was in place, making him glimmer like a Sickle in the moonlight. His eyes passed coolly from Harry to Ron as the three folded the tent together, his thin mouth occasionally quirking when one of them made a joke.

It wasn’t until his eyes met hers that she realized he looked unusually tense and serious. She wondered if he was afraid that, after everything they’d spoken about last night, she would fail to perform the charm.

 _Of course you will,_ said a small, cold voice in the back of her mind. _How could you perform it alone? You, with your posturing, with your pathetic over-preparation …_

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and forcibly dispelled the thought. When she opened them again, Malfoy had looked away.

Hermione felt an anxious tightness in her chest. Last night, she’d unloaded every ugly feeling of the last two weeks onto Malfoy—every ugly feeling of the last ten years _,_ really. She’d confessed her worries about her looks to Ginny before, but that was the most superficial of the lot. Not even Harry or Ron knew her worries about her parents—the nagging feeling that, beneath it all, that they would have preferred her not to be a witch.

Now, in the light of day, it was difficult to believe that she’d trusted _Draco Malfoy_ with those feelings. Even a year ago, he would have used any hint of those weaknesses to reduce her to tears.

Hadn’t he acknowledged that much, though? He’d said that at Hogwarts, he would have loved the diadem’s power, the ability to rip everyone apart. She wondered if that had been his way of implying that he wouldn’t use her secrets for that purpose.

She supposed she had no choice now but to pray that was the case.

It was still dark by the time they entered Godric’s Hollow, all under Disillusionment. The Potters’ cottage looked even more forlorn by night, the gaping hole in its upper corner filled with black sky.

They stopped. “Ready?” Ron whispered.

“I think so,” Hermione whispered back, her voice sore.

“You’ll be great,” Harry said. “Have you got the diadem on?”

“No. I … I’ve decided not to use it.”

“Why not?” Ron said. “That’s your superpower, isn’t it?”

Hermione knew he didn’t mean anything by it—the diadem _was_ an extraordinary object—yet it still hurt, for some reason, to hear him silently acknowledge that she might fail without it. Even now, knowing what the Horcrux had done every night, she couldn’t help wanting to wrest it from Malfoy’s robes and put it back on—to feel that sense of infallibility one more time.

“I’m worried,” she said quietly, “that if I cast the Fidelius Charm while wearing the Horcrux, the fragment of soul might confuse the charm into admitting You-Know-Who into the secret, too. And of course, there aren’t any details of how Horcruxes might interact with the charm in my book, because it’s such an arcane Dark Art. I supposed it was better to be safe.”

Ron’s silhouette let out a slow, quiet whistle. “Good thinking. I bet that could happen.”

Harry accepted the excuse with no questions. “I’m going in, then,” he said. “Good luck.” The ivy on the gatepost rustled as he vaulted into the overgrown yard, and old stone crunched as he assumed his place on the cracked front path.

Ron held Hermione’s notes with the tips of finger and thumb, so that the parchment faded into view. Meanwhile, Malfoy’s indistinct outline drew his wand. He and Harry had decided to prepare for a fight, in case they were ambushed. For now, they were inconspicuous enough—Ron was holding her notes close to the hedge, to camouflage the single sheet of parchment appearing to suspend itself in midair—but, of course, the eventual casting of the spell would be unavoidably obvious. Assuming she got that far.

Harry lifted his colorless hands in a thumbs-up, and Ron squeezed her shoulder. “Thanks,” she whispered, and she found her eyes straying to Malfoy again, immobile by the gatepost. He hadn’t settled against the post as if he expected the exercise to take hours. She appreciated the tiny, probably unconscious gesture, and she found herself remembering his words about how the entire school spoke about her. Oddly, the thought managed to bolster her where endless reassurances from her friends always failed. Ron and Harry wanted her to be happy and confident—they had reason to compliment her, flatter her, exaggerate her capabilities. Unknown Slytherin first-years discussing her had no motive at all.

Hermione took a deep breath of the chilly air. She looked back to her notes and lifted her wand.

And then, as she began to speak, something wonderful happened. Her eyes fell shut, and she realized she didn’t need the notes at all.

The incantations spilled from her lips, memorized to the tiniest inflection over the course of weeks, the wand movements embedded in muscle memory. She spoke the two definitional incantations, and then the third in reverse, which would redouble their strength; she spoke them all as fluidly as she would have spoken her own name. As she cast the bounds of the charm, she fixed the Potters’ hedges in her mind, taking care to define a hundred yards’ safe air above the cottage, too, and a hundred yards’ safe earth below it.

Perfectly on time, the memory of security floated to the top of her mind like cream: a blissful, ordinary evening in the Gryffindor Common Room, first year. She and Harry and Ron were laughing about a joke Hagrid had made when they’d visited him earlier that afternoon. The fire was crackling in the hearth. They were safe, and together.

 _A memory of entrance._ This, too, rose up easily—the image of Diagon Alley’s brick wall splitting open the first time she’d ever visited it. The memory played so vividly in her mind that she could almost hear the bricks shifting, shuffling against each other.

 _A memory of disappearance_. Hermione had considered choosing any number of Vanishing Spells for this memory, but she’d settled on something all the clearer for how painful it still felt. She saw her parents asleep as she slipped through the door of their bedroom. She’d watched them greedily for one last second before she shut the door, knowing she might never see them again.

 _A memory of trust_. She’d used the same memory for this incantation since her very first practice: Hagrid’s bristly face in the third year, kind and sympathetic. Hagrid, proffering his terrible rock cakes as she buried her head in her arms and sobbed about Ron and Scabbers, wracked with guilt but unable to apologize. She couldn’t believe she was responsible, because if she _was_ responsible for Ron’s pet’s death, what did that make her? The worst friend in history, and she couldn’t go back to having no friends, she just couldn’t do it. And she’d told Hagrid all this, and he’d sat there beside her and patted her gently on the back until she was hiccupping.

Now, though, to her alarm, she found her mind veering in another direction. Another, untested memory was surfacing—a much more recent one. She was hugging her knees on the sofa in the tent. Tears were streaking down her face. And across from her, at the sofa’s opposite end, Draco Malfoy was watching intently, a light frown on his face. He wasn’t dismissing her. He was just listening, and listening, until she’d cried herself back into her body.

She was nearly at the spell’s end now, but she couldn’t let herself anticipate it—couldn’t let her focus break.

She whispered the incantations of closure. She moved her wand in a counterclockwise circle, and then, finally, a clockwise circle.

She opened her eyes.

A jet of brilliant blue light erupted out of her wandtip. It flowed onto Ron’s Disillusioned body, and he was unable to restrain a short cry of shock. The light poured out and out of her wand, built up and up around him like a layer of robes—and when his whole body was encased, it all sank into him in an instant.

Hermione’s heart sped. She recognized that light from the text’s description— _a light like ice made liquid—_ and its faint greenish afterglow.

Had it worked?

Slowly, unspeaking, they turned to look at Harry. To Hermione’s eye, his outline and the cottage looked completely normal, but when her eyes found Malfoy, the shape of his Disillusioned head was swiveling, never fixing quite correctly on the building.

“Malfoy?” she said, her voice small and tired in the cool dawn air. “Is it …”

“It’s gone.” He sounded unsteady. “Potter, the cottage. Everything.”

“And me?” Hermione opened the gate and stepped onto the Potters’ front path. The moment she crossed the threshold, he said,

“You, too.”

“Ron,” Hermione said, her heart beating so hard now that it felt painful. “Write it. Go on.”

Ron took the quill and ink from where he’d planted them in his pocket, spread the sheet of notes on the gatepost, and scrawled the secret on the back of the parchment.

_The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is located at Number 7, Hartbridge Way._

Ron gave the parchment to Malfoy, then hastened to join Harry and Hermione up the path. They all watched Malfoy, holding the parchment by the corner, his Disillusioned head bowed over the words.

Then Malfoy walked forward, over the threshold, into the bounds of the Fidelius Charm.

Elation flooded Hermione like the warmth of Butterbeer. Ron let out a great whoop, waved his wand in an exuberant sweep to melt away their Disillusionments, and swept Hermione into a hug that took her off the ground. She let out a disbelieving peal of laughter, and Harry, who had also let out a delighted yell, leapt forward to embrace her, too.

Hermione couldn’t take the feeling all in at once. It was like the rush of unrolling her O.W.L. results to see Outstanding after Outstanding—but so much better, exponentially and impossibly better, because this really _meant_ something. This would keep them all safe.

“You’re a genius,” Harry said, squeezing her tightly, “you know that?”

“A bloody genius,” Ron was roaring. “A Fidelius Charm at seventeen!”

“You two, I can’t breathe,” Hermione said, laughing, her cheeks aching with the way she was smiling. Then, over the boys’ shoulders, she saw Malfoy standing framed by the gateposts, fading back into view under the setting moon. He looked awkward, as if he didn’t know where to go or whether he was welcome in the celebrations, but at the sight of him, gratitude flooded through Hermione. If not for the way he’d outplayed the Horcrux, she would still be wearing it, believing more and more with every minute that she was helpless without it. She waved impatiently to bring him over, beaming.

He strolled casually up the path to them as Harry and Ron broke away. “Not bad, Granger,” Malfoy said. “Probably good enough to earn an ‘Acceptable’ from Flitwick, I’d say.”

Harry and Hermione both laughed, and even Ron was still grinning. Malfoy’s thin mouth twitched, apparently unable to avoid a smile completely.

Hermione suddenly remembered the memory that had surfaced for the image of trust, and even in her giddiness she felt a rush of confusion. All the moments in her life that she’d felt trust—and last night was the one her mind had chosen? She hadn’t felt nearly so secure speaking to Malfoy as she had to Hagrid, or as she always did speaking to Harry and Ron.

But then, she supposed, as they turned to enter the cottage, trust wasn’t security. It was its absence. A step into nothing, with the hope that something solid would rise to meet you.

* * *

Sixteen years’ neglect look like this:

The collapse of structure. Broken windows from heavy storms and someone’s old disrespect. The unraveling and slow retreat of wallpaper. The exposure of wooden bones, and warp in those bones. Erosion on the outside, the crumbling of sills and lintels. Rot eating away at the inside. Subtraction.

And—accumulation. The absorption of water into every element. Growth, in every damp patch, of mold. Growth, on metal surfaces, of the red grit of rust. The appearance of small bodies: rodents, insects. Ancient leavings from scavenging animals. Dust frothing up on every surface. Scents hanging on the air, dirt, old wet, reclamation, so thick you could paint landscapes with them.

The first thing they did to the cottage that day was to force its old, water-swollen windows open. They stood outside and cast Charms that sent air pouring through the whole building, spilling out through the cottage’s rear face, whisking away every foul smell. They left the windows wide, inviting in the scents of autumn, as they scoured surfaces, pulled open old drawers, tugged furniture away from the walls, unscrewed rusted doorknobs, peeled off sheets of ruined wallpaper, ripped up the stained carpet in the side room, and pitched buckets of dust out into the yard, where it flurried away in rags like ashes.

Draco thought Potter wouldn’t be able to stomach the work, to see the filth his old home had been mired in, but he was wrong. Potter seemed determined to participate in every single foul thing the abandoned place required. In fact, he seemed a bit fanatical, and spent that first evening drawing up plans for what to handle next with a fervor he’d certainly never shown during any class at Hogwarts.

Granger and Weasley, apparently wanting to prevent Potter from getting too obsessed, instated a rule of four hours’ work on the cottage per day, maximum. The rest was reserved for planning their trip into Diagon Alley, and for Occlumency.

“We don’t need Occlumency anymore,” Potter insisted. “It doesn’t matter if they find us. They can’t get into the bounds of the charm.”

This, Draco had to admit, was a fair point. Granger had done the thing well. By the second day after their arrival, cloaked figures could be seen idling by the stream that ran fifty yards past the cottage’s back garden, or else sitting upon the weathered bench on the opposite side of Hartbridge Way. But as much as they lurked, they couldn’t get inside.

Draco knew that if the Death Eaters had been able to get into the cottage, they would have done so right away. Still, that didn’t stop him from feeling an instinctive jolt of panic when, on the fourth day, he looked out the window of the cottage’s upper storey and saw Nott’s stubbled face aimed in their general direction.

Granger saw him flinch. They were working in the master bedroom, peeling wallpaper away from the edges of a moldering skylight. “It’s awful seeing them there, isn’t it?” she said with a shudder.

Draco turned stiffly away from the window. “I’ve had better views.”

“Maybe we should grow the hedges,” Granger said thoughtfully. “I don’t think we’ll be able to hide them from this floor, but we can at least keep from seeing their ugly faces when we’re in the garden and on the ground floor.”

Draco considered Granger. She’d bound her hair back in a thick braid to keep it out of the way while they cleaned. She had a smudge of dirt on her chin, and her tan face was flushed from the effort of scrubbing by hand, the Muggle way. She’d warned them all in her usual bossy way that over-reliance on magical cleaning could threaten the cottage’s structural integrity.

“What?” she said.

He glanced at the door to make sure they were alone. Then he muttered, “Nothing. You look better.”

She hesitated. “Thanks. I feel better.”

In the days immediately following the Fidelius Charm, Granger had looked tired and worn. She’d told Potter and Weasley that it was a drainage effect from the Fidelius—that the charm needed several days to become self-sustaining, and until then, it would sap her energy.

Draco, who had glanced over the text of the Fidelius Charm, knew that this was nonsense. It wasn’t hard to guess that the exhaustion was the effect of her separation from the Horcrux. So, on the second day, he hadn’t exactly been surprised when she’d cornered him in the bathroom to plead for the diadem, to let her put it on for just a moment, just a few minutes, please, not to _do_ anything, just to scratch the itch—

She’d raged at him when he’d said no. “You cowardly, selfish little _snake_ ,” she’d snapped at him, her eyes wild and blank, and she’d stormed away.

Not even an hour later, she’d found him to apologize, looking mortified. “I … listen, Malfoy, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine,” he’d said, continuing to siphon dust off a sideboard with his wandtip.

“No, it isn’t,” she insisted. “You’ve been such a help. I can’t believe what I said.”

“Me neither. Calling a Slytherin a snake as an insult? Painfully lackluster. You’ll have to do better next time.”

She mouthed at him, disbelieving. “It’s not _funny,”_ she said.

“It’s funny enough.” He put down his wand on the sideboard and leaned back against it. “I’m not that sensitive, Granger.”

She snorted. “Oh, aren’t you? I seem to remember six years’ pointless arguments at Hogwarts that suggest otherwise.”

“Yeah, well. That was Hogwarts.”

“You say that like it was a million years ago.”

“Wasn’t it?”

The amusement faded from her face. They stood in silence for a moment, and Draco watched a shaft of dusty light move across her forehead as she shifted her weight.

After a moment, he picked his wand back up and returned to the sideboard. “It wasn’t you, Granger,” he said. “No need to get so bothered about it.”

Draco didn’t know how he felt about keeping these secrets with Granger. Every night since the Fidelius Charm, after Potter and Weasley went to bed, Draco crept down to the end of the hall in the tent-flat and tapped on Granger’s door. She’d appear there in her Granger Dental Studio nightshirt and give him her wand. Then he’d lock her in for the night, so she couldn’t go sleepwalking again.

The first few nights, Draco stayed up late in the sitting room to see if anything would happen. Around midnight on the first night, rattling and scraping started to shake her door. It grew so loud that Draco had to cast _Muffliato_ on Potter and Weasley’s door. The second night, there was a gentler attempt—a few frustrated twists of the knob. By the third night, the Horcrux seemed to have lost its grip of her sleeping mind, and Granger’s room was quiet.

Now, whenever they spoke, all this was in the back of his mind. The image of her face in the dark, ashamed but determined, as she entrusted him with her wand. The hour they’d sat awake talking after he’d snatched the diadem from her hair. The relief he’d felt when she’d performed the Fidelius Charm correctly. The way she wiped her tears with her second knuckle. It was all very irregular.

Granger wound up enlisting Potter and Weasley to help with the hedges. All four spent the next hour walking the bounds of the front and back gardens, casting growth charms until the hedges were ten feet tall, as thick and healthy and opaque as the Shrouding Shrubs that Professor Sprout kept in Greenhouse Three. Granger was slower than the others. She kept pausing to add outcroppings of flowers. Then she’d stand back and look at her handiwork, smile faintly to herself, or brush her fingertips over the flower petals before moving on. Draco occasionally glanced over at this process without really knowing why.

“Oi,” Weasley said. “Pick up the pace, would you?”

“For Merlin’s sake,” Draco said. “Are you my employer, Weasley? Are you paying me for this?”

Weasley narrowed his eyes. Draco knew he was waiting for the second half of the remark, some crack about Weasley’s inability to pay anyone. But, God, the insult was just so well-worn after a month and a half of living together. Draco felt like it almost demeaned him at this point to pluck such low-hanging fruit. He settled for yawning in Weasley’s face and went off to do the garden’s southwest corner.

They weren’t living in the cottage itself, of course. They knew they would be sleeping in the tent, pitched permanently in the backyard, for weeks. And it wasn’t like the cottage was so promising, Draco often thought, feeling sour, as he did things like levitate dead centipedes out from behind a toilet. Even at its best, it would hardly be a palace. You’d have been able to fit the whole building into Malfoy Manor’s west wing.

And yet … when they’d finished working on the front room, and the old rug had probably twenty pounds of dust beaten out of it, and the warm red woven thing was replaced on the shining, smoothed-out floorboards, Draco felt that there was something to the place. There was something to sitting there on the old leather sofa, watching Granger stacking books of defensive spells on the newly polished shelves, watching Weasley massacre Potter at chess for the millionth time.

In these moments, Draco felt comfortable. So probably he was going insane.

Mostly, though, the days were filled with agitation over the upcoming visit to Diagon Alley. They’d decided that Potter was to play Pansy’s father. Even with Polyjuice Potion, accents could occasionally peek through, and Weasley’s accent was about as far from Mr. Parkinson’s as a person’s could be. But this left them in the uncomfortable situation of Granger and Potter pretending to be married, an idea that Weasley palpably loathed.

Granger didn’t seem to have acted on what Draco had told her—that Weasley was in love with her. Given her insecurities, Draco had half-expected that the only reason she and Weasley weren’t together was some idea in her head that he didn’t really want her, but apparently not. She had been unusually polite to Weasley since they’d moved into the cottage, getting into fewer squabbles with him about nothing, but she seemed ever more hesitant to be alone with him, and Draco thought he sometimes saw her eyes straying to Potter.

Draco supposed he should have guessed—Boy Who Lived, Chosen One, all that—but the idea of Granger pining after Potter annoyed him, for some reason. Probably because he dreaded Weasley’s reaction if the other two ever actually _did_ get involved.

Anyway, Weasley made a terrible child, was the point. And Potter, while a marginally better option than Weasley, was still a thoroughly unconvincing Mr. Parkinson. In order to practice the family’s mannerisms, they’d done some Transfigurations to make Potter look more like Mr. Parkinson and Granger more like his wife. Granger didn’t do too badly—she was able to adopt Mrs. Parkinson’s prim, critical air reasonably well—but Potter … anyone who had ever met Mr. Parkinson would think he was Confunded, or more dangerously, Imperiused. Potter just couldn’t _condescend_ the way he needed to. Draco imagined scenarios where he caved under pressure and started hexing people left and right in Diagon Alley.

As September wore on, the news on the Wizarding Wireless grew grimmer. Reports from the Muggle-born Registration Commission now included ever-longer lists of names of people on the run, referred to as dangerous fugitives who should be apprehended on sight. Draco felt a small, numb shock when Dean Thomas and Ted Tonks were read off the list. Thomas had been well-liked at school, milder and more thoughtful than most of the Gryffindors. As for Ted Tonks … Draco’s aunt had been disowned by the family for marrying him. If he died, it would mean Andromeda had lost him, _and_ her entire family, for nothing.

Nearly every evening, dry academic voices on the Wireless could be heard delivering new reports about the dangers of Muggle-borns. “New studies reveal that magic can only be passed down from witches or wizards through blood,” the reporters said, “and as such, investigations into these so-called ‘Muggle-borns’ and how they have stolen Wizarding secrets are imperative.”

They never listened to the reports all the way through. Weasley or Potter always turned them off, glancing over at Granger, who would immediately busy herself with her planner or _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ , though she couldn’t hide her strained expression.

Sometimes Weasley gave Draco suspicious looks after these reports. At first Draco didn’t understand why, but eventually he realized: Weasley thought he might get ideas.

There was no denying that Draco _did_ think about the Muggle-born reports. He thought about them while he cleaned the Potter cottage, while he got filth under his fingernails and sweat in his eyes. He thought about the broadcasts as he scrubbed his aching muscles in the shower, and for restless hours before he could get to sleep. The dissonance he felt about them was almost physically painful, because his feelings about blood status were tied up in his parents and his childhood and a world that no longer really seemed to exist.

The broadcasts included familiar, comforting phrases like ‘ _the community of wizardry’_ and ‘ _the extraordinary nature of magical powers’_ and ‘ _what separates the magical from the mundane, the spectacular from the Muggle.’_ Draco had grown up around this kind of talk. He’d always been taught to take pride in his wizarding heritage. Every time he’d reached a new magical milestone—his first use of accidental magic, for instance, and the first time he managed sparks with his mother’s wand—his parents had burst with enthusiasm in a way they hardly ever let themselves show. They had Flooed other families to tell them, and they’d had traditional Wizarding celebrations for these events, and built into all this ritual was the fundamental idea that nobody else could really understand them, that only pure-blood families expressed Wizarding pride in such a true, legitimate way.

So, this idea in the reports that Muggle-borns had somehow “stolen” magic … Draco knew it was propaganda, but at the same time, he still felt in his gut the emotion that the propaganda played on. It was the fear that Muggles were encroaching on the Wizarding World, usurping what wizards had created for themselves. As if it weren’t enough to look through _A History of Magic_ and see the history of witch-burnings and wizard persecution, which was the reason they’d gone into hiding in the first place—now Muggle-borns were flooding into Hogwarts, like his father had always said, as if they belonged there? As if they didn’t have a whole world of their own already? And if the barriers between the worlds continued to erode, who knew what it would mean for wizards and their always-delicate way of life, their reverence for everything magical?

Draco had never had a real reason to rethink any of this. All his friends had been raised to think the same way, after all—raised well, as his mother called it.

Life with Potter, Weasley, and Granger, though … it had begun to give him pause. He was living with a blood traitor, and someone raised by Muggles, and a Muggle-born. In pure-blood circles, there was deep suspicion about what these sorts of people would do to pure-blood traditions if given the chance: discard them, pollute them, corrupt them.

But Draco had lived with these three for nearly two months now, and the strange thing about it was how _normal_ it all felt. The more he thought about it, the more he suspected that they wouldn’t actually give a damn if he wanted to carry on the magical traditions he’d been raised with. His whole life, Draco had felt that he, his family, and his friends were battling a threat to their way of life, grappling for power because the alternative to gaining power was ceding it, and to cede power would mean obliteration. But now, having crossed over enemy lines—living with the three people who were the most emblematic of enemy territory—he found himself wondering where the threat was, because if it was here, he couldn’t seem to find it.

None of these destabilizing thoughts did anything to ease Draco’s nerves about the Diagon Alley visit. Granger kept assuring him that framing the Parkinsons as victims would absolve them of any blame, but Draco couldn’t make himself believe it. The fact of the matter was, if the Parkinsons were used to damage the Death Eaters’ cause, they would be viewed as a liability. The Parkinsons weren’t Death Eaters themselves—at least, they hadn’t been when Draco had left Hogwarts—so at least they wouldn’t be personally punished by the Dark Lord, but the Death Eaters could do quite enough damage on his behalf.

As the visit drew closer and closer, Draco began to suffer from intrusive visions of Pansy’s family under Death Eaters’ wands, screaming from the Cruciatus. And the imagined scenarios seemed contagious. Sometimes, while Potter groaned over the chessboard or Weasley made ironic commentary on the Death Eaters lurking outside or Granger told them absentmindedly to shut up, as she was trying to read, Draco had sudden, lurid visions of them being tortured, too. Maybe he really was going mad.

Three days before the trip to Diagon Alley, there was a loud _crack_ in mid-afternoon. Draco was working with Granger on the small library room, sorting the books with water damage from the ones without. They both hurried out to the back garden to find Weasley alone, working on repairing the small, shattered path that led to an algae-covered pond in the corner.

“Where’s Harry?” Granger asked. “Was that him? Where’s he gone?”

“It’s all right, calm down,” Weasley said. “He’s gone to get new carpeting for that room with the smashed windows.”

“Oh.” Granger heaved a sigh. “Did he take the Cloak?”

“Yeah, he’s got it. And we Transfigured him before he left.”

“All right.” Granger bit her lip and hesitated. She seemed to be making some sort of decision. “Look,” she said finally, “I … this evening, I was thinking …”

“Not now, Hermione,” said Weasley, going back to the path. “Bit busy here.”

Granger’s cheeks flushed. “Fine, then,” she said coldly. She turned on her heel and strode toward the cottage’s back door.

Draco was about to follow when Weasley said, “Malfoy, hang on, I want a word.”

Draco hesitated. Weasley wasn’t working on the path anymore. He’d put down his wand and was peering around Draco’s legs to see whether Granger had disappeared from view.

“What’s going on?” Draco said slowly. “Potter _is_ all right, isn’t he?”

“What? Oh, yeah, he’s fine.” Weasley got to his feet. “Look, Malfoy, it’s—well, it’s Hermione’s birthday today. She thinks we’ve forgotten, but we haven’t. Harry’s gone to get a cake and some decorations and a bottle of Firewhisky.” Weasley glanced at the cottage again and grimaced. “She’ll be angry with me now for interrupting her, but … I think she was just about to bring it up, and it would ruin the surprise if she mentioned it herself.” He sighed. “Anyway, point is, Harry’s going to get back with all the decorations and I don’t want her to see us at it. We’re going to put away the tent and do the yard up. We only need half an hour or so. Could you keep her in the library just between half-five and six?”

Draco opened his mouth and closed it again.

“What?” Weasley said.

“Nothing,” Draco said coolly. “Just didn’t think you had it in you, Weasley. This could actually be considered thoughtful.”

Weasley reddened. “Oh, shut up. Will you do it or not?”

Draco shrugged. “Yeah, I’ll keep her. Merlin only knows how I’ll manage to occupy Hermione Granger in a library, though.”

Weasley barked out a laugh, seemingly before he could stop himself. Then he cleared his throat loudly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks,” he forced out. “Er. And—thanks for helping with Parkinson as well, we know you’re worried about her, but nothing bad’s going to happen.”

He said this last very quickly, as if it would help him to ignore the fact of what he was saying.

Draco, totally blindsided now, could not actually form words. He just made a feeble sort of ‘eenngh’ sound, jerked his head in a nod that probably looked more like a spasm, and retreated to the cottage, wondering what in Merlin’s name had just happened. Had _Ron Weasley_ just attempted to extend an olive branch? The madness was truly spiraling.

Granger was quiet that afternoon, while they worked through the books in the Potters’ library. Draco knew that she would like Potter and Weasley’s surprise, but it was hard not to want to _say_ something about it when she had that miserable look on her face. He remembered how she’d spoken about Potter and Weasley under the Horcrux’s influence, terrified that they didn’t really care about her, and now they seemed to have forgotten her birthday.

But he managed to keep quiet. At six o’clock, he stood up from the mound of books, stretched, and said, “Shall we see whether Weasley’s blown up the garden yet?”

Granger must have been really annoyed with Weasley, because she didn’t defend him, just sighed, stood, and followed Draco out through the kitchen.

They came out of the side door. Granger stopped in her tracks. Draco watched surprise, then delight, spread over her face.

“Oh, Harry, Ron, you _didn’t!_ ” she cried, running to hug her friends. They’d strung fairy lights across the garden—somewhat clumsily, Draco couldn’t help thinking; he was used to his mother’s impeccable décor—and conjured a table on the small patio. It was laden with a small chocolate cake and a bottle of amber liquid. Sparklers were dashing through the air, forming the words _HAPPY 18 th BIRTHDAY HERMIONE._

Draco watched the three of them for a moment, hugging in this idyllic square of grass enclosed by ten-foot hedges, and he felt as if he were detaching from himself, from the scene. The whole of it began to feel surreal. How could an evening like this be contained in the same world where, even now, the Dark Lord’s forces were growing in power and number across the nation? The imagined pictures came again, more graphic than ever, forcing Draco to blink hard at the stone wall of the cottage—Weasley’s gangly body twitching and jerking as Bella shrieked with laughter, Potter’s glasses shattering as he writhed beneath a curse, Granger …

He looked back at them. Granger was beaming so widely that her eyes were crescents, pushed up by her cheeks. She was speaking animatedly to Potter and Weasley, and Weasley was chortling, probably recounting how he’d snubbed Granger that afternoon to divert her, and Potter was laughing, too, the back of his hand rubbing his lightning scar absentmindedly.

Three days from now, those three would walk into Diagon Alley, into the heart of things, and they were still woefully underprepared.

Draco approached them. Their small circle opened to admit him.

“Were you in on this, too?” Granger said, still smiling.

“Sort of,” he said stiffly.

“Thank you. It’s a wonderful surprise.” She glanced back to Potter and Weasley. “I can’t believe you two remembered, in all this.”

“Look,” Draco said, “I’m—I’m going to come into Diagon Alley with you three.”

A brief, stunned pause. The Gryffindors’ smiles turned to expressions of incredulity.

Draco crossed his arms. “ _You’re_ hopeless, Potter, you still have no idea how to act like Pansy’s father. And Weasley, it’ll be less obvious that you’re a 17-year-old in a 10-year-old’s body if there are two children. And—anyway, it’ll be safer.”

There was a brief silence. Then Weasley said, “Yeah. All right. So, is this just to get a piece of cake, or?”

Granger and Potter both started laughing. Draco shook his head, but a traitorous smile tugged at his mouth. “I’ll need something stronger than that, Weasley,” he said, picking up one of the small glasses of Firewhisky and downing it in a single go.

* * *

On the morning of September 22nd, they Apparated onto the far outskirts of the Parkinson estate. The Parkinsons had their own private Quidditch pitch, as Mr. Parkinson was one of Nimbus’s chief engineers. As they passed the pitch, Draco remembered playing three-on-three with Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, Blaise, and Theo Nott, and a pang went through him. He wondered how the Slytherin Quidditch team was performing this year. It seemed almost ridiculous, the idea of team practices and scheduled matches still going on.

There was a side gate at the limit of the Parkinsons’ property. Draco tapped the lock and said, “Camellia”—Pansy’s grandmother’s name. It clicked and allowed them through.

The Parkinson house was a long, rambling property, not quite as elegant as Malfoy Manor nor as large, but with modern touches like the large glass sunrooms at either end. Draco led the way through the grounds in the half-darkness toward Pansy’s window. A flowering trellis led up to her window, a romantic touch that she’d always loved. When they stopped at its foot, Draco looked up and could almost see her there, sliding the window open, leaning one elbow against the sill, a catlike smile on her close-set features.

Draco climbed up the trellis, which clacked softly against the wall of the house. He’d done it a dozen times before, in the summer between fifth and sixth year, and soon the window was open, and all four of them were inside.

The others slipped out into the corridor at once. Weasley would find the family house-elf and slip her three drops of the Sleepiness Solution. Granger would use a Script Imitation Charm on something Mrs. Parkinson had written to forge a note to the gardener on the front door, rescheduling his visit. Potter would collect hairs from each family member and ensure that the potion had affected them correctly. It should have done: the cookies had been delivered by owl last night, each one personalized to a different member of the family, and Draco, spying through the kitchen window, had seen them eaten with relish.

Draco was about to undertake his own part of the mission—to find the Parkinsons’ papers—when he hesitated. He took a long, slow breath and brushed the lilac comforter with two fingers. Pansy’s light perfume hung on the air, a scent as familiar as his own home.

He was startled to feel his eyes prickling hotly. He blinked hard, feeling stupid, but his imagination was getting away from him now. Was Pansy, even now, turning over in her bed in the Slytherin dormitories, about to wake early as usual? She could always be found doing her homework in the common room at the crack of dawn, tapping her wand on her knee rhythmically as if it were a drumstick.

He wondered if she was still seeing Theo. The two of them had taken up some kind of relationship after Draco had broken things off last January, though Draco had always suspected its primary purpose was to make him jealous. But maybe it had become something else after his supposed death.

He was surprised to realize he didn’t mind the idea very much. His relationship with Pansy, like so much else at Hogwarts, seemed to belong to a kind of imagined version of himself now.

Still, it took several more moments for him to walk through the door.

Draco moved down the hallway laden with expensive art, then down the sweeping staircase that encircled a crystal chandelier, then across the marble foyer. He found what he needed in the kitchen quickly enough: their Floo Powder contained in a sculptural twist of dark glass. Then he took the heavy bottle of Polyjuice from his pocket and divided it between four stone flagons. There was enough in each flagon to last several hours, at least, and hopefully the flagons would still be small enough to remain inconspicuous.

Draco checked the ebony-faced clock on the wall, whose Roman numerals glowed brightly, slivers of enchanted opal. So far they were on time.

He made for a sliding door by the sunroom. Beyond it was Mr. Parkinson’s study, a long, dark room with a dozen models of broomsticks mounted on the walls: the Nimbus 2000 and 2001, the classic 1940, the old cult favorite 1280. Sketches to scale of an in-progress design for a Nimbus 2002 were strewn across the table that took up the center of the room. Draco only spared a glance for the elegant drawings, hurrying toward the personal desk by the French windows.

The desk’s third drawer was locked. “Camellia,” he whispered a second time, tapping it. The lock clicked open, and he pulled it wide. The Parkinsons’ papers were clipped neatly inside a folder that he tucked into his robes.

Draco was about to leave when his eyes caught on the desk’s surface. Scattered across the cherrywood were letters in Mr. Parkinson’s small, precise writing.

He paused. He’d been wondering for weeks whether the Parkinsons had finally declared their loyalties, whether—when he took the Polyjuice Potion—he would look down at his left arm to realize Mr. Parkinson had taken the Mark, too.

He began to rifle through the letters, searching for Bellatrix’s extravagant, looping script, or any other Death Eater’s hand he might recognize. But his eyes caught, instead, on a Hogwarts crest. He extracted the envelope from the rest, frowning, and withdrew the letter inside.

Words in Severus Snape’s handwriting read,

_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Parkinson,_

_I regret to inform you that your daughter, Pansy, has been given her third disciplinary warning. As such, she has been assigned three days’ worth of detentions with Professors Carrow and Carrow. Her punishment will be at their discretion._

_I privately advise that you write to your daughter to discuss her behaviour and how she might adjust to Hogwarts’s new environment. As her Head of House for six years, I assure you I attempted to make provisions for the recent loss of her close friend, but I can only do so much in the face of this kind of erratic, inappropriate behaviour._

_Yours,_

_Severus Snape  
Headmaster of Hogwarts  
Potions Master_

Draco scanned the letter again, his throat tightening. _Erratic, inappropriate behaviour?_ What had Pansy done?

His eyes found the date at the top of the letter. This had arrived two weeks ago. Draco started to sift through the other letters upon the desk, giving the lamp a sharp tap to ignite it. In the flood of warm light, he spotted it almost immediately: Pansy’s handwriting, looping and calligraphic, in her favorite color of indigo ink. He snatched up the letter.

_Dear Mum and Dad,_

_Thanks for your letter, but I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m fine after my detentions and I’d do it again. If you must know, Professor Carrow joked about what happened in May, actually joked about it. Everyone was furious, but I was the only one who said something. You wouldn’t have stood it, either._

_Besides, everyone knows they’re_ _only half-bloods anyway._

_I’d have thought you’d be proud of me. You’re the ones who are always talking about loyalty. Write again soon, and I hope you’re safe._

_Pansy_

Draco gripped the letter so tightly that the parchment creased. _What happened in May._ Did she mean … but what else could she mean? He’d died at the very end of May, and the month had, before that point, been uneventful.

Had Pansy really backtalked the Carrows for making fun of him? “Stupid,” Draco whispered under his breath. What did it matter if one of the Carrows had mocked his death? What had they all expected? He’d died in failure and disgrace. Of course he was an object of scorn to the Death Eaters.

But Pansy—he could feel her fingertips stroking his hair, could taste the honey of her lip balm—of course Pansy hadn’t kept quiet. She’d been punished for it, too, and from what Draco knew of the Carrows, a punishment from them wouldn’t have been something to brush away in a single phrase, _I’m fine after my detentions._ But that was Pansy. Proud to a fault, scornful of weakness, all sharp teeth and vicious tongue.

“Malfoy?” said a voice.

Draco leapt and shoved the letter back into place. “Coming,” he said, striding out of the study and closing the door behind himself.

“Do you have the papers?” Granger asked.

He nodded. “Let’s go.” Weasley and Potter were standing by the hearth, already holding their flagons of Polyjuice, ready to drink. Draco took the one that Granger handed him, tipped it against his lips, and drank.

* * *

Hermione had spent so long with only Harry, Ron, and Malfoy for company that stepping out of the fireplace into the Leaky Cauldron made her feel an instinctive shock, as if she’d already done something terribly wrong. The grubby little pub was as busy as she’d ever seen it, but it wasn’t filled with regulars at their usual tables and barstools. Instead, lines of witches and wizards snaked through roped-off walkways, all trudging toward the back door and the entrance to Diagon Alley.

“Come on—move, move,” said the harassed-looking official manning the fireplace that Malfoy, Harry, and Ron had just stepped through. “Make way, there could be more any moment.”

Malfoy, now the broad-shouldered and dark-haired Mr. Parkinson, gave the man an icy look. “Yes,” he said in a rich baritone, “thank you for your contribution.”

As the man glared back at him, Malfoy ushered Harry and Ron toward where Hermione stood in line, swatting lazily at the two boys’ shoulders. This earned Malfoy a pair of glares from Harry and Ron, too, and Hermione said, under her breath, “You two.”

They both took deep breaths and untwisted their sour expressions.

“Our papers, darling,” said Malfoy, taking a sheaf of parchment from his robes.

Hermione’s cheeks grew warm. She knew it was Malfoy, and she knew it was an act, but having a complete stranger look her in the face and call her _darling_ still felt mortifying. It was actually _more_ mortifying, knowing it was Draco Malfoy, of all people, saying the words.

“Yes, thanks, dearest,” Hermione said, trying to remove any hint of irony from her voice.

One corner of Malfoy’s mouth twitched as she took the papers.

While they moved forward in line, Hermione handed Devon and Charles Jr.’s papers to Harry and Ron, making a show of telling them how to present them to the nice witch and wizard at the checkpoint. Hermione’s heart beat faster and faster as they approached the checkpoint, but when they reached the sour-looking witch who was checking papers for their line, the witch took one look at Hermione’s face and her expression transformed into a smile.

“Astrantia!” the witch exclaimed. “It’s so lovely to see you, so lovely to see a familiar face.”

Hermione thought her heart might have stopped. She had broken into an instinctive smile, but when she opened her mouth, no words came out.

Malfoy moved a step past her, and the witch’s eyes fell to him instead. “And Charles! It’s been too long.”

Malfoy offered a large, artificial smile and his hand, which the witch shook. “Finnida,” he said. “It has. They have you doing _this_ sort of work, do they?”

Finnida’s nose wrinkled. “Unfortunately,” she said. “Terrible understaffing at the Department these days, I’m sure you’ve heard all about it … everyone who reports to me has been put on Floo monitoring duty, so here I am.” She sighed. “Not without excitement, though, this post. A Mudblood tried to come through yesterday evening, you know. Bold as brass, saying she just needed to get potion ingredients.” She looked from Malfoy to Hermione, clearly expecting commiseration.

“Hard to believe,” Hermione said, stroking her hair behind her ear in the way that Mrs. Parkinson always did, according to Malfoy. “At least you were there to stop it.”

Harry and Ron shifted uncomfortably at her side.

“Devon, Junior, give Finnida your papers,” Hermione said, ushering them forward. Harry and Ron looked up at Finnida with large, dark eyes and stuck out their papers. Finnida made a show of stamping them with a shiny, official stamp, then gave a fond chuckle as she did the same for Malfoy and Hermione.

“So much taller,” she said.

“It’s true what they say,” Hermione said with a tinkling laugh. “It happens too quickly.”

“Enjoy it in there,” Finnida called after them. “It’s much _cleaner_ than usual.”

Malfoy aimed a thin, satisfied smile back at the witch as they exited the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione let out a slow, trembling breath as they entered Diagon Alley.

“Yes,” said Malfoy at her side. “Breathe normally.”

“Useful, aren’t you,” she said.

“I try to be.”

The four Parkinsons walked up past Ollivander’s, now shuttered, and the imposing marble façade of Gringotts. Diagon Alley still had its fair share of shoppers, but they were walking more quickly, and, if in groups, moving more closely together. Malfoy and Hermione adopted the stance that most parents seemed to have fallen into: Harry and Ron walked just in front of them, a parent at each of their backs.

“Here!” Harry said as they reached a small turn that was marked _Acaysian Alley._ “… Mum,” he added hastily, with an unconvincing tug at Hermione’s robes.

“Yes, dear,” said Hermione, restraining a nervous smile. “I see it.”

They turned down Acaysian Alley and saw it immediately. It was impossible to miss: the alley came to a dead end fifty paces ahead, and there, the florid material of the stall winked at them, covered in blue moons, fiery red suns, and brilliantly yellow stars. A sign twisted over its entrance in ribbon over and over again: _The Scavengers’ Guild._

As one, they ducked through a hanging flap of cloth into the stall. “ _Wow_ ,” breathed Harry, sounding every bit the ten-year-old. After weeks in the tent, Hermione thought she could no longer be surprised by the sudden expansion of space, but this was something else altogether. The stall, which from the outside had had no more than seven or eight feet’s height, had opened up into a space as tall as a cathedral. It comprised a single narrow passageway, like the alley outside, but every inch of vertical wall space was hung with items: cups and saucers and plates mounted in brackets, gas lamps and large waxen candles, musical instruments hanging from hooks, a fifteen-foot row of shabby-looking wands, patterned carpets and bolts of cloth, on and on and on.

And clearly, the Scavengers’ Guild wasn’t suffering from Diagon Alley’s new restrictions. The place was packed with people—but rather than milling around on the ground, they were floating around the walls in large wicker baskets, like those that might hang beneath hot-air balloons, each quite unsupported.

To Hermione’s immense relief, the items weren’t all jumbled in together. The Scavengers seemed to have a category system, and soon enough Harry had spotted the section devoted to jewelry, demarcated by a large, glittering sign with a diamond ring that jutted out from the wall. It was fifty feet off the ground, the jewelry glowing like a patch of shimmering scales high overhead.

More baskets lined the base of the wall, each large enough for one or two people to stand inside. “Devon, you come with me,” Hermione said, opening the side of one basket, “and Charlie, you go with Dad, all right?”

Ron entered the basket with her, and Harry and Malfoy took one nearby. She and Malfoy tapped their respective baskets once with their wands, and they rose into the air. Hermione tried not to focus on the increasing height, instead watching the Scavengers’ wares pass. They ascended past a sea of rings that shivered on long, bent nails driven into the wall. They passed bracelets and bangles and anklets. Finally, they reached the necklaces, a section of wall six feet across that reached up and up into the distance.

From below, the stall’s upper reaches had looked clogged with people, but up here, Hermione felt as if they’d entered a private room. The nearest person was twenty feet down the wall and thirty feet below. They could speak without fear of being overheard.

“Merlin, there’ve got to be thousands,” Ron said, dismayed.

“Well,” said Harry from the opposite basket, “let’s start at the bottom and work our way up, d’you reckon? Remember, it’s gold, has Slytherin’s S on it, and it’s set with emeralds. About the size of a chicken’s egg.”

And so they set to it. They rose side by side in their wicker baskets, picking through silver chains and ebony beads, passing over glass hoops and jade carvings. Hermione squinted and touched until her eyes felt strained and her hands smelled bitter, like old silver.

“Do you have the time?” Malfoy asked her, after a while. Hermione startled. She’d completely forgotten that she needed to be checking when they were due to take another dose of Polyjuice Potion.

“Er, yes,” she said, fumbling with her sleeve. “Of course. … Five to!”

She couldn’t believe they’d passed an entire hour already. She’d thought this process couldn’t possibly take more than two, but she hadn’t counted on the amount of detritus that the Scavengers would have harvested.

They all surreptitiously took their flagons from their pockets and drank. On and on they rose, foot by slow foot. At one point, Harry seemed oddly dazed by a necklace set with sapphires, and was halfway to putting it on when Malfoy snatched it out of his hand and shoved it back onto the wall. Ron eyed a necklace dripping with diamonds longingly, and said, “How much do you reckon _that_ is?”

“Oh, a Knut or two, I’d say,” Hermione said, scanning a tangle that seemed to be about fifty feet of fine gold chain knotted together.

Half an hour later, they reached the top of the section, still empty-handed. “Nothing,” Hermione said bitterly.

“Nothing,” Harry agreed. “You don’t think they could have found it and _realized_ it was Slytherin’s, do you? I mean, in the memory, Voldemort knew what it—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Ron said through gritted teeth.

“What?”

“Don’t say the name! We’re in public!”

Harry looked around in exasperation. “The nearest basket’s all the way over there. No one’s going to hear—”

“But if someone _did_ hear—”

“Oh, never mind that,” Hermione said. “Let’s get back down. We need to ask the Scavengers if they’ve seen, or sold, anything like it that they can remember.”

They returned their baskets to the cobbled floor of the stall, somewhat to Hermione’s relief, and hurried toward the back. Fred had told them that the Scavengers could be found in the portrait section, in a room behind a portrait of a king eating a pile of corn twice his height. The portrait didn’t take long to locate, as it was at ground level, and the mountain of golden corn was nothing if not eye-catching.

Hermione, per Fred’s instructions, knocked five times on the king’s stomach. The king let out an earsplitting belch, turned over his shoulder, and called toward a window in the background, “Celine?”

“What?” yelled a voice from the shuttered window.

“Haggler,” the king called back.

The portrait cracked open, and out stepped a tall Chinese woman. Her long black hair was braided with bright pieces of cloth, and her arms were laden with glittering silver jewelry and sparkling tattoos.

“Want to haggle, do you?” she said.

“No, it isn’t that,” said Hermione, drawing herself up. She let her eyes linger in a disapproving sort of way on the woman’s tattoos; she didn’t think Mrs. Parkinson would have liked them. “We’re looking for a specific piece and we can’t find it on your walls. We’re wondering if it’s come through your hands.”

The woman jerked her head, and they all followed her through the portrait hole into a dim but comfortable room, littered with poufs and rugs and, apparently, everything else the Scavengers had collected that they weren’t keen on giving up. Several others Scavengers were loafing in the room, sprawled on velvet divans, counting stacks of unrecognizable coppery coins, wearing gaudily mismatched clothes.

“I’m Celine Shih,” said the tattooed woman. She had a low, smoky voice.

“Astrantia Parkinson,” Hermione said with a thin smile. “Charmed.”

“Charles Parkinson,” Malfoy said. “And our two sons, Devon and Charles Junior.”

“It’s amazing here,” Harry blurted.

Celine Shih seemed to soften, looking at Harry. “Thank you, little one,” she said, crouching in front of him and smiling to reveal a gold-capped tooth. “What’s your mother looking for today?”

“It’s a family heirloom,” said Harry, with a convincingly uncertain look up at Hermione.

“Yes,” Hermione said. “A locket that belonged to my great-grandmother. Its clasp was always weak, and we think it detached somewhere in the streets of London when my sister wore it out last.”

“Mm,” said Celine, arching one eyebrow. She slouched into a chair that was elevated like a throne. “And when was that?”

Hermione pursed her lips. “My sister, naturally, has forgotten when she last had it. She always was careless.”

“We kept it in our home until two summers ago,” Malfoy offered. “It’s made from pure gold, engraved with an _S,_ for Scilla, and inset with emeralds. We’re a family of Slytherins, you see. Have been for centuries.” He offered another one of Charles Parkinson’s broad, artificial smiles.

“The catch is stuck,” Hermione added, “so it refuses to open, if that helps you identify it.”

“Emeralds,” said Celine. She tapped her long fingernails on the arm of the chair. “We always watch for emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and citrine … Hogwarts parents are fond of the house stones. We put them on the wall and they’re gone by the next month.” She shook her head. “We’ve only had a few emerald pieces in the last two years. Three rings and a very beautiful bracelet.”

“You’re absolutely certain?” Hermione said.

Celine narrowed her eyes. “I never forget our wares,” she said.

“My wife didn’t mean to offend,” Malfoy added smoothly. “The locket is important to our family. You understand.”

“Very important,” Hermione said. “You wouldn’t be able to describe _how_ you find these objects? In case we wanted to search for ourselves?”

Celine’s eyes roved from Malfoy to Hermione, then to Ron and Harry. She looked suspicious, and Hermione thought she might be trying to sniff out whether they were trying to compete with the Scavengers’ business. But the Parkinsons looked very obviously related, and evidently Celine doubted that they would have birthed two children just to con her, because she said,

“It’s a spell I developed. You start high up, on a broom, and narrow down on a trace of magic. It won’t work anywhere like Diagon Alley, or in Wizarding settlements—so much magic overloads the spell. But in barren areas—Muggle areas, that is—it finds a breadcrumb, and leads you down the trail.”

She stood, whisked a piece of parchment from a small, heavily jeweled case, and used a peahen feather quill to jot down the details. She handed the sheet to Hermione.

“Thank you,” Hermione said.

Celine opened her mouth, but before she could speak, a sound blared from the other side of the portrait. A magically magnified voice was booming, _“Please descend in an orderly fashion to the ground and prepare your papers.”_

All the Scavengers leapt to their feet. Celine pulled the portrait back open. “Out,” she said. “Out!”

They all rushed back into the stall, where the wicker baskets were retreating quickly from the heights of the walls, their passengers tripping and stumbling out in their haste to obey the voice. Hermione took in a sharp breath. Half a dozen figures had appeared at the entrance.

“What is this?” Celine demanded, striding through her customers toward the robed figures. “What do you want? All our permits are in order.”

The figures were dressed in Ministry uniforms rather than Death Eaters’ robes, but Hermione thought she recognized the face of Yaxley. “ _Random inspection_ ,” his voice boomed.

The Parkinsons exchanged looks and ducked back through the portrait into the Scavengers’ lounge. “There’s no way,” Harry hissed. “This isn’t a coincidence. How did they know? My scar hasn’t hurt at all! And no one could possibly have overheard what we were saying, they were all miles away.”

Hermione’s mind raced. _Could_ someone have heard their voices echoing unnaturally far? And even if they had, what in their conversation would have given away their identities, besides … besides …

Hermione let out a gasp and clapped one hand over her mouth. She looked at the others. Realization had struck Ron’s and Malfoy’s faces as well.

“You said … you said his name,” Ron said.

“Is this really the time,” Harry said angrily, “to—”

“Harry,” Hermione said, “you said it that day in the clearing, as well. And that day when we were making dinner. You said it right before all the protective spells broke.”

Harry’s ten-year-old face gaped up at her. “ _What?_ ”

“That’s how they’ve found us,” Ron moaned. “Merlin’s pants, didn’t I tell you all it felt like bad luck?”

“Makes sense,” Malfoy muttered. “Only people like you ever said it, after all. You and Dumbledore.”

“They can _do_ that?” Harry said.

“Yes,” Hermione said, “it’s called a Taboo, and I read about it in _A History of Magical Surveillance_. It’s an archaic form of magic—and it’s normally limited to a much smaller scope, within a mile radius or so … to Taboo an entire _country_ would take the kind of ability that only people like You-Know-Who would have.”

The truth settled between them, but it brought Hermione no satisfaction. This might help them avoid problems in the future, but the present situation was what needed their attention.

Malfoy seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “We can’t be found here,” he said.

“Brilliant,” said Ron. “Did you figure that out by yourself?”

“I mean in this room,” Malfoy hissed. “It’ll look suspicious. Get out, join the queue, get your papers ready. _Go_.”

They exited the backroom and slipped into the crowd, mingling with anxious-looking shoppers who were clutching their papers in their hands. The crowd jostled and jostled, shuffling them forward. But the Scavengers’ stall hadn’t been built to contain hundreds of frightened people all on the ground. Hermione heard a small, high voice say something, and when she looked back, she realized she and Malfoy had been separated from Harry and Ron.

She tried to push back, but the tide was too strong. “We’ll wait for them outside the tent,” Malfoy said, seizing her by the forearm so they didn’t get separated, too.

Hermione checked her watch as they neared the front of the stall. The line was chaotic, but moving quickly, and they still had another twenty minutes before they needed another dose of Polyjuice. They were safe enough on that front, at least.

The stall was echoing with the other shoppers’ anxious voices, creating a turbulent stew of noise. When they were feet from Yaxley and the other five Ministry employees, however, Hermione could finally hear what they were saying to everyone who approached. “Wands and papers out.”

Hermione registered these words, panic flooding her, as the queue spat her out in front of Yaxley. Wands. _Wands._ Ollivander had been in Voldemort’s custody—and they knew that she and Harry were on the run—and Ollivander could identify her wand, and Harry’s.

“Ah,” said Yaxley, his expression easing. “Mrs. Parkinson, isn’t it? Your papers, and your wand, if you please, and we’ll have you on your way.”

“Yes, fine,” Hermione sniffed, trying to stay composed. She turned over the papers, but she had no choice but to hand him her wand, too.

He gave her papers only a cursory glance before returning them, but when he placed the wand on a small set of scales and read the slip of parchment that spat out of its side, he froze.

Yaxley looked up at Hermione, opened his mouth, and closed it again. The surprise on his face was veering into suspicion, and Hermione didn’t know what to do, what to say. She knew she should be formulating an excuse, but all she could feel was panic, blotting out her thoughts like the roar of the ocean.

Then a ringing baritone said, “Corban. What a pleasure.” Malfoy had strode up to her side. Hermione had the crazed instinct to seize Malfoy’s wand, hex the living daylights out of Yaxley until she could retrieve her wand, and make a run for it—but of course it was a ridiculous idea. Harry and Ron were back there in the crowd, and with five other Ministry officials standing in the entrance, checking others’ wands and documents, she wouldn’t be able to do so much as _lift_ her wand before being overpowered.

“Charles,” said Yaxley, blinking up at Malfoy.

“My wife giving you trouble, is she?” said Malfoy, with a self-satisfied chortle. “Here. Wands and papers.” Yaxley checked Malfoy’s items and returned them, but he kept hold of Hermione’s wand.

Malfoy’s smile faded from his square face. “Is something the matter?”

“There is, now that you mention it.” Yaxley straightened, nearly to Mr. Parkinson’s height. “Your wife is carrying a wand that belongs to a known fugitive and Mudblood.”

Hermione didn’t know whether she should feign outrage. She glanced up at Malfoy. They needed to present a unified front—but how to make sure their stories aligned?

After a moment’s silence, Malfoy let out a long sigh. “You see?” he said to her in a slightly patronizing way. “You _see?_ Didn’t I _say?_ ”

From his tone, Hermione could guess the response he was looking for. She let out a defensive huff. “Charles, please. I don’t want to hear it.”

Malfoy turned back to Yaxley. “It’s a new wand,” he said. “She’d been having trouble with her own for months, and I told her we ought to go to a _reputable_ salesperson to have a new one made. But she insisted on an Ollivander reseller.” He ran a hand through his thick dark hair. “To be fair, we’d heard that with all the wands getting taken off Mudbloods, there were a number of quality wands in circulation. … But you say—what, this one is a fugitive’s wand?”

“I find it to be a perfectly good wand,” Hermione said sharply. “And we paid good gold for it, Charles.”

Malfoy made a convincing grumbling sound, throwing up his hands. Hermione felt a sudden wave of relief that he was here to act the pure-blood. They were actually managing it, concocting a story in conjunction on the spot. It even seemed to be working on Yaxley, whose brow had unfurrowed.

“I see,” Yaxley said slowly. “Be that as it may, this wand will be _very_ valuable to some of our current … ah, investigations. Any information you can give us could be useful, too. And of course, I’ll want my Aurors to run a number of tests on the wand itself. I’ll have to ask you both to accompany me back to the Ministry.”

Hermione’s heart dropped, but Malfoy said, sounding dismissive, “Yes, naturally. It won’t take long, will it? Our sons are—”

“They’re at home by themselves,” Hermione broke in. “They’ll be expecting us soon.”

She exchanged the briefest glance with Malfoy and saw understanding in his expression. It wouldn’t help things for Harry Potter to be dragged into the Ministry alongside them, that much was for sure.

“Mr. and Mrs. Parkinson,” Yaxley said, a note of soft menace entering his voice now, “let me be perfectly clear. This is not routine. This wand is of the utmost importance, not just to me, but to—” He raised his eyebrows, his eyes glittering— “my superiors.”

Hermione exchanged another look with Malfoy, this time long enough for Yaxley to see. She let some of her fear show on her face, and Malfoy forced a hard swallow, as if in realization.

“Ah,” Malfoy said. “Yes. We understand. As long as you need, Corban.”

“And of course,” Hermione added, “we would be honored to … to assist.”

“Good,” Yaxley said, sounding satisfied. “Drummond, Borrofield! Come with me. You three, stay and finish checking the rest of this lot.”

Hermione’s heart thumped hard as she folded Mrs. Parkinson’s papers back into her robes. They might have avoided immediate detection, but how long could they maintain this façade? Would Yaxley really believe that, by sheer coincidence, her wanted wand had popped up in a place where Voldemort’s name had just been spoken? They had to think of a way to tie the threads together somehow—but how to avoid incriminating the Parkinsons in the process? Or was that already doomed?

Her stomach lurched hard with yet another horrible possibility. If Yaxley’s Aurors performed _Priori Incantatem_ on the wand, would it reveal the information in the Fidelius Charm?

As she followed Yaxley out of the stall, she glanced back in time to see Harry and Ron emerging at the front of the queue. Harry’s eyes widened, and he made to lunge forward, but Hermione looked to Ron and shook her head violently. Ron seized Harry’s wrist and yanked him backward, into the crowd, out of sight.

Hermione let out a shaky breath. She trusted that Ron would get Harry to safety, at the very least, and they’d brought their D.A. coins for just this kind of emergency. She would be able to communicate that they were safe, as long as they remained safe, that was.

As they walked up Acaysian Alley, a Death Eater leading them and Ministry employees flanking them, Hermione glanced up at Malfoy. For the first time that day, she could see a shadow of Draco Malfoy on Mr. Parkinson’s square face. There was something in the way his eyes were fixed ahead, fearful and wary. Fear was beating steadily through her own body, too, her heart pounding against her ribs like a furious fist against a tabletop.

Still, she and Malfoy had talked their way out of immediate suspicion, hadn’t they? Maybe, just maybe, they could talk their way out of the rest, too.

Two things, Hermione thought grimly, were certain: they were walking into the belly of the beast, and she was glad not to do so alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is Celine Shih vaguely inspired by the love of my life, Ching Shih, the most powerful pirate of all time? yes. yes she is. someday i'm gonna write a series about a pirate queen inspired by her, can't wait
> 
> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	11. Magic is Might

The Ministry had changed.

Draco had last visited during the summer before fourth year. His father had stopped by, Draco in tow, to visit a few choice contacts in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. “My son, Draco,” he’d said to innumerable people, and Draco had smiled and shaken hands while his father told them that he flew for Slytherin, and eventually—what a coincidence!—Cornelius Fudge happened to look in on Ludo Bagman at the same moment they were visiting with him.

They’d left that day with tickets to the Top Box tucked into his father’s robes. Draco remembered swaggering through the large, light-filled Atrium at his father’s shoulder, feeling that every door was open to him. He’d flipped a Galleon over his shoulder into the Fountain of Magical Brethren as he’d gone.

Now the Fountain was gone, and the center of the Atrium boasted an enormous statue of black stone: a witch and wizard perched on twin thrones.

Only as Yaxley led them past its base did Draco notice that the thrones were made from multitudes of human bodies, pressed and twisted into each other, seeming—though they were quite still—to writhe like animals. They were naked, and humiliatingly so, their feet and elbows and clawlike hands shoving into each other’s stomachs and breasts and buttocks. They were Muggles.

He had the sudden urge to turn toward Granger, to distract her before she could see it, but before he could move, she stiffened beside him. When he next chanced a glance at her, Mrs. Parkinson’s dark eyes were flashing and fixed on Yaxley’s back, her lips parted as if she were measuring her breaths. She’d seen.

“This way,” Yaxley said, beckoning them toward the lift. As they skipped to the front of the queue, he added, “Borrofield, fetch Crabbe for me. He should be up on Level Two. We’ll be down in the detention area—Room Four should be free.”

Borrofield nodded and peeled away.

Draco let out a laugh, allowing himself to sound uneasy. “Hold on, now, Corban—the detention area? Don’t you have an office we could speak in?”

Yaxley gave a dismissive wave as the lift’s golden grilles clattered open. “All procedure, Charles, no need to worry.” But there was a hint of enjoyment in his voice.

Just before the doors to the lift closed, Draco snuck a last glance at the great golden clock that hung in the Atrium. He and Granger had both managed to sneak their third drink of Polyjuice Potion during the walk through London to the Ministry, which had taken far longer than he’d hoped it might. Now, again, they were nearing the hour: ten minutes before they needed to replenish their disguises. Draco wondered if he could uncork his flagon in his pocket and conceal it in the wide sleeve of his robes.

He saw Granger’s hand fiddling in her own pocket and knew that she was altering the coin the D.A. had developed, sliding her fingertip clockwise around its circumference to make the numbers rise. They’d developed a simple set of numerical codes to indicate their status: safe, in transit, in danger, in emergency, and in captivity. Now that they were no longer in transit, he wondered which she would choose to describe their current situation.

But Draco didn’t know what it would _do_ , really, to tell Potter and Weasley that they were in danger. If the two Gryffindor boys didn’t act like _complete_ idiots, they would be able to get out of the Scavengers’ stall without Potter’s wand being spotted: they would simply have to hand over their papers, showing that they were below Hogwarts age, and thus below the age that they should possess a wand. But they certainly couldn’t burst into the Ministry, disguised as children, and demand that their parents be handed over. Yaxley was treating them cordially enough now, but Draco knew they hadn’t escaped suspicion: Drummond had relieved him of his wand before they’d left Diagon Alley. Draco’s hands felt very empty, and though he had never spent much time with Yaxley, he still worried that somehow Yaxley would recognize his wand: hawthorn, ten inches, unicorn hair core.

The lift clattered to a halt. “Level nine,” said its cool female voice. “Department of Mysteries.”

Granger’s motions were noticeably stiff as they exited the lift, walking down a long, dark corridor toward a sealed door. Before they’d neared it, however, Yaxley detoured them down a stairwell toward the courtrooms.

Draco felt the Dementors before he saw them. A clammy coldness crept over his body. His chest constricted, as if iron bands had been fastened around his torso, and any thoughts of the Polyjuice in his pocket, or of excuses that he and Granger might be able to conjure, leaked away. Memory rose up instead, surging in him like magma, burning away reality. He could feel the old fine carpet against his cheek, abrading his skin, as he lay upon it, twisting and twitching, his mouth gracelessly open. The fire was hissing and spitting like a serpent, and the serpent herself was twining between the legs of the velvet armchairs … though nearly blind with pain, he could see Nagini moving…

_“You have displeased me, Draco,” said Lord Voldemort’s silky voice. “Did you not promise me you could give me what I asked? Did you not swear it on your life … on your beloved family’s life?”_

_He heard himself gasping, “I … I’m …”_

_“Did you not promise me the life of Albus Dumbledore?”_

_“Yes, but I—I just need more ti—”_

_“Yes? Yes, what?” There was a smile in the Dark Lord’s cold voice. “Now, now, Draco … where is your courtesy? Where is your respect for your master? …_ Crucio! _”_

_Draco screamed. The pain was skating over the surface of his skin like a thousand delicate cuts. The pain was inside him, splitting bone, skewering nerve._

_It was ten seconds, or several minutes, or possibly a lifetime, until the intensity lessened enough for him to form words—“Yes,” he sobbed, “m-my Lord …”_

_The wand lifted. Draco was drenched in sweat, his body limp and still. The pain had gone. His face was wet with tears. He heaved, lying there on the floor, but nothing came up. He heard voices from beyond the door—his mother screaming at Bellatrix, and Bellatrix yelling something back—_

Yaxley’s voice split the memory in two. “ _Expecto_ _Patronum!_ ”

Silver vapor brought the present back to him. Draco’s mouth was still open, as it had been in the memory, his heart pounding. A sheen of sweat had covered his clammy forehead; he wiped it with the back of his forearm and felt his fingers twitching.

He realized there was a force upon his other arm. He looked down and saw Granger gripping onto him just above the elbow—when had she done that? He realized with a small shock that he was leaning substantially on her, her body straining with the force of holding up Mr. Parkinson’s frame.

As the silvery cloud continued to issue from Yaxley’s wand, the tightness in his chest eased, and his legs took his full weight again. Still catching his breath, he glanced down at Granger. She faced ahead, but didn’t let go, a wife holding her husband’s arm in seeming support. Her own face was drawn, but when she moved, she seemed steady.

Yaxley seemed satisfied by the vapor, and continued to cast the charm intermittently as they moved into the courtroom halls. The silvery glow reflected off the walls’ dark tiles, and the tall, hooded Dementors that were gliding throughout the hallway shied away from the light, moving closer to the rows of people huddled on wooden benches outside the courtroom doors. Draco watched their terrified faces in the glow of Yaxley’s incorporeal Patronus. Some had tear tracks glistening on their cheeks. One boy, who couldn’t have been older than eleven, had buried his face in his mother’s arm, his shoulders heaving.

Draco found himself fixating on Granger’s grip, the simple feel of her hand through his robes. She was holding on uncomfortably tight—that was Granger for you, he supposed—but the human contact seemed to be anchoring him here, in this time, far away from the dark year.

As they moved toward the end of the hall, it occurred to Draco that the other Ministry official, Drummond, was trembling. He had to stop intermittently to lean against the wall, and hardly seemed to be paying attention to them at all. Draco, under the pretense of detaching his arm from Hermione, placed his palm against her pocket, pressing the flagon into her hip. She met his eyes, and he glanced to Drummond. She followed his eyeline, then lowered her head in an almost imperceptible nod.

Draco uncorked the flagon in his own pocket. When Yaxley moved ahead of them to knock on a door with a brass number ‘4’ on it, he and Hermione turned away for an instant, under the pretense of looking down the crowded hall, and drank quick swigs from their flagons of Polyjuice.

The flagon felt horribly light as he replaced it in his pocket. They would have this hour, but how much longer? Mere minutes, probably.

Though Yaxley had said it should be free, the door to Room Four opened at his knock, revealing a little witch with flyaway grey hair. “Oh,” she said, looking flustered, “Yaxley, we—we hadn’t expected you back until—?”

She moved back ever so slightly, and Draco saw who was sitting at the table behind her, poring over what appeared to be a family tree. A velvet bow was perched atop the woman’s head, she wore a lace ruff at her throat, and a serene smile was spread across her wide, toadlike face.

Dolores Umbridge looked up, a silvery cat Patronus circling her ankles. As her eyes passed over Draco, he felt a new discomfort course through his body. He remembered answering to this woman with the Inquisitorial Squad. At school she’d been a bit of a joke among the Slytherins, really, one of Fudge’s lackeys, never answering to anyone with real power, but now that the Dark Lord had taken the Ministry, nothing seemed very funny about her anymore.

“Ah,” said Umbridge, getting to her feet and brushing imaginary dust from her robes. “Are you ready to begin interviewing the next of the Mudbloods, Yaxley?”

“No, don’t disturb yourself, Madam Umbridge. I need to ask Mr. and Mrs. Parkinson a few questions, but I can find a different room.”

“Oh, no need for that.” Umbridge let out her simpering little laugh and rolled up the family trees. “Mafalda and I will simply call for another Auror if you’re unavailable. We should really be getting on with it, or I’m sure we’ll be here until after closing. … We don’t need another Wednesday, do we?”

A malicious smile curled Yaxley’s mouth. “I don’t know. I don’t mind seeing the Mudbloods passed out. Less trouble that way, aren’t they?”

Umbridge laughed again. “You’re quite right. Come, Mafalda—we’ll retrieve our files and then we’ll begin.” She trotted forward, beckoning to Mafalda with one crooked finger. Mafalda, holding quill and ink, fell into line behind her.

Umbridge paused in the doorway, glancing from Draco to Granger. Her smile was fixed. “And … it’s usually such a pleasure to see you, Charles, Astrantia, but … it seems this isn’t the happiest place to meet?”

“We’re here to give vital information to the Ministry _about_ Mudbloods, thank you,” said Draco coldly. His mouth felt strange around the word, as it had in the Scavengers’ stall. He supposed that after hearing it on the Wireless in all those reports, it was only natural that it had begun to sound different, to feel different.

The hard, sceptical look in Umbridge’s eyes softened. “Of course. Do pardon me, Charles—I should have known.”

Draco dipped his head in a stiff nod. “No offence taken.”

“Chilly, isn’t it?” Umbridge remarked to Mafalda, tugging at the neck of her robes, and as her lace ruff shifted, Draco saw it.

A golden locket had peeked out from under the lace. It was inscribed with an intricate letter S and inset with green, glittering emeralds.

Granger, beside him, took in a short gasp. Draco cleared his throat loudly to cover the sound, and as Yaxley entered Room Four, Draco had to take Granger’s elbow to steer her inside, followed by Drummond. She glanced at him, her eyes wide with disbelief, and he dipped his head to let her know he’d seen it, too. But there was nothing they could do now, with no wands and a hall full of Dementors between themselves and freedom.

The door closed, and Yaxley summoned more silver vapor. Soon the room was warm, if not altogether comfortable, with its single wide table and half-dozen chairs.

“Please,” Yaxley said, indicating the table. “Sit.”

Draco sat down at Granger’s side. Yaxley sat opposite them and placed Granger’s wand before him, while Drummond hovered at Yaxley’s shoulder, his own wand in hand.

“Now,” Yaxley said, “tell me where, exactly, you bought this wand, Mrs. Parkinson.”

Granger flicked a lock of dark hair behind her ear in the way she’d perfected, which was so reminiscent of Mrs. Parkinson herself that Draco could nearly see her telling Pansy not to slouch. “Well,” she said crisply, with a faint, convincing note of annoyance, “I would think that was obvious.”

“Would you?” Yaxley said coldly. “Please, then. Enlighten me.”

“You saw us in the Scavenger’s Guild only twenty minutes ago, didn’t you?” Granger eyed her wand. “They carry wands, and that one caught my eye. It looks something like my old wand, you see. I knew it had to be one of Ollivander’s, and—” She raised her hands and looked toward the ceiling, letting out a little sigh “—yes, I know the man has demonstrated unacceptable leanings, but he himself is a pure-blood and our family has patronised him for decades, so I see nothing wrong with preferring his work, thank you.”

Draco was downright impressed. It was as if she’d met the woman herself. Then again, Pansy had inherited some of her mother’s manner, and … well, he supposed, Granger had certainly witnessed enough scorn from Pansy to be able to recreate it.

“I see,” Yaxley said. “The Scavengers didn’t happen to tell you _where_ they found this wand, did they?”

“Oh, yes, I interviewed them quite thoroughly about it. I wasn’t going to pick up any old wand, was I?” Granger sniffed. “They said they found it in London.”

“Where in London?” Yaxley said impatiently.

Granger glanced upward, the fine wrinkles around her eyes deepening, in a good impression of recollection. “Near one of the old enclaves. Grimmauld Place, I think.”

Yaxley sat forward in his seat. “When was this?”

“Two months ago. We were looking for something for Charles Junior’s birthday—it’s July 28th.”

Yaxley let out a short breath, and disappointment soured his expression. Of course, Draco thought—two months ago, Grimmauld Place had still been under Order control, so it would be unlikely that the Death Eaters could learn anything new from the wand, if it had been lost then. Still, Draco thought, if Hermione was trying to wriggle out of tests being performed on the wand, she was sure to be disappointed.

A quiet knock on the door. When it opened, Draco’s throat grew very tight.

Alistair Crabbe entered the interrogation room. He was a huge man, half a head taller again than his son and built like Greyback, with dark hair shorn short.

“Ah, good. Crabbe,” Yaxley said. “Drummond, you may go.”

Drummond, eyeing Crabbe, looked glad to leave. He placed Draco’s wand on the table in front of Yaxley, then scurried for the door in a way that made Crabbe’s lip curl. When the door had closed, Crabbe looked over at Draco and Granger for the first time, and surprise registered on his blocky features.

Draco felt certain, for a moment, that Mr. Crabbe would look into his eyes and know somehow that it was him. Mr. Crabbe had taught him how to swing a Beater’s bat at age eight, how to grip onto a broom handle to land at age six. He and Mr. Goyle had been all but surrogate parents to Draco for most of his life. He wondered if they had stood together at his funeral, if they had mourned him, in their way.

“Alistair,” Draco managed to say, inclining his head.

“Charles,” Crabbe grunted in a deep bass. “What’re you doing here?”

“Well,” Yaxley said, “we can speak freely among the four of us. Crabbe, Mr. and Mrs. Parkinson have come across the wand that belongs to Hermione Granger, the Mudblood that the Potter boy has been traveling with. She would be a most valuable hostage to the Dark Lord. … _Most_ valuable.”

“ _Potter?_ ” Granger said, her dark eyes round. “We could help him find Potter?”

Crabbe sank into a chair that groaned beneath his large frame. Beside him, Yaxley looked almost delicate, and when Crabbe picked up Granger’s wand, it looked like a twig between his beefy fingers. “Could we track where it’s been?” he said in that soft, deep voice.

“I thought of _Priori Incantatem,_ ” Yaxley said. “Someone from Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. They’ll cast a stronger _Priori Incantatem_ than most.”

Crabbe dipped his head in a slow nod. “Or …”

“Or?” Yaxley said.

“An Unspeakable. They work on Time and Space, in there.” Crabbe glanced upward, to the ninth floor, and the Department of Mysteries.

Excitement came over Yaxley’s face. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, good idea, Crabbe. Perhaps there’s some kind of trace of location on the wand. Merlin knows what they could do. I’ll go up and have a word with Ghosh.”

He swept Granger’s wand off the table and left.

Draco glanced over at her, wondering if she would be willing to sacrifice her wand in order for them to escape safely. If he could only grab his own from where it lay on the table and Stun Crabbe … but the table was too wide to reach across without him flinging himself bodily toward Yaxley’s empty seat, and Crabbe had taken out his own wand now, turning it over and over absentmindedly.

Several minutes passed before Granger asked, “You’re well, Alistair?”

“Well enough,” Crabbe said.

Draco swallowed past the lump in his throat. Doing his utmost to eliminate any strain from his voice, he asked one of the questions he’d been thinking about for three months. “And how is Vincent?”

Draco was startled to see a distinct coldness, even disdain, appear in Crabbe’s face. “Doing better than your girl.”

Granger sat up straighter in her seat. Draco said, “Pansy is perfectly well, thank you.”

“That’s not what Vincent’s telling me.” Crabbe hunched over the table now, his lip curling. “Has Garton told you?”

“Whatever it is, yes, I’m sure he has,” Draco bit out. Mr. Goyle and Mr. Parkinson had been best friends since their school days—what wouldn’t they have shared with each other?

Crabbe let out a rough laugh. “I don’t blame him for keeping it quiet. He didn’t want to tell me, either.” He smirked and lowered his voice. “He’s been having trouble with Gregory, too. He and Pansy let all that business in May get to them, sounds like.” He paused. “You know, with the Malfoys and their boy.”

Draco’s stomach clenched. “Is that right?” He waited for Crabbe’s expression to grow sober at the mention of their deaths.

It didn’t. Instead, an almost greedy smile spread across Crabbe’s face. “Knew they had it coming to them. Just _knew_ it. Lucius was big for his britches the first time around. You said it yourself, didn’t you, Charles? They were always going to get cut down to size. … Well, I could’ve told you they’d be dead within a couple years, way they were going. Pretending like they were _friends_ with the Dark Lord— _hah_. And that boy of theirs.” He shook his head, letting out another short, harsh laugh. “Never treated my son like much, did he? Smarmy, preening little idiot. No real loss there.”

Draco felt as if he’d been socked in the gut. All the air had gone out of his body.

“Al—Alistair,” said Granger. She sounded shocked.

Crabbe shrugged, looking over at her with a malicious glint in his eye. “Yeah. I can see what _you’re_ scared about. Way that girl of yours is going, you’ll have to pull her out of Hogwarts if you don’t want her ending up the same way as the Malfoys.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “It’s a lack of loyalty, that’s what it is. But I’m not worried, ‘cause I raised Vincent right. He told me months before it happened, he knew the Malfoy kid was done, and good riddance. He’s told me, too, he’s said outright— _if Pansy and Greg are too cowardly to fight for the Dark Lord,_ he says, _I’m done with them, too_. Because that’s as good as being a filthy blood traitor, isn’t it?”

In the deafening silence, Crabbe started turning his wand over and over again. “Galton’s worried about Gregory. And he should be. Why aren’t you worried?” His dark eyes moved from Granger back onto Draco. “We notice things, you know. We see you two haven’t declared your loyalties. We wonder about that, we do.”

Draco knew he needed to make some kind of excuse as to why the Parkinsons were being slow to join the Death Eaters. He had to think of something, but his mind was blank. The only thing happening in his head was the slow repetition of Crabbe’s words: _No real loss there. … Smarmy, preening little idiot. … Never treated my son like much, did he?_ And he remembered what Weasley had said a month and a half ago. _I never thought I’d sympathize with Crabbe and Goyle, but I don’t know how they put up with you._

Crabbe himself had told his father he knew Draco would fail. He’d said, _Good riddance._

Draco was finding it hard to breathe.

Granger’s voice broke the silence. “All I’ll say, Alistair,” she said with magnificent coldness, “is that you don’t know whether the Dark Lord has even given us the honor of an invitation to his inner circle. Or are you claiming that you have the influence to extend those kinds of invitations yourself?”

Crabbe’s expression darkened, but before he could say anything, Yaxley returned, a scowl on his long pale face. “Nothing from the Unspeakables,” he said. “Ghosh did perform _Prior Incantato_ on this blasted thing for me, but it was all Disillusionments and protective charms. The remnants had faded out long before it got to anything useful. She might’ve ditched it because we have Ollivander. Maybe she guessed we’d try to find her wand.”

“Have you tried the _Prima Satteranium_ charm?” said Granger.

This managed to penetrate Draco’s numbness. He looked over at her, trying to hide his disbelief. What was she doing? Was answering questions just so deeply engrained in her by now that she couldn’t hear a problem without suggesting an answer?

“ _Prima …_ ” Crabbe repeated slowly.

“ _Satteranium_ ,” she finished. She glanced between him and Yaxley and raised her dark brows. “You two _do_ know that I was a part-time specialist at the Assembly for the Development of Experimental Charmwork before I had the boys?”

Draco’s disbelief transformed into curiosity. Pansy’s mother had done no such thing. Granger was up to something.

He chanced a glance at Crabbe, worrying that he might remember that Astrantia Parkinson had never been a member of the Assembly. No, though—Alistair Crabbe could hardly have named what his _own_ wife had done with her free time, let alone be bothered to keep up with the wives of his acquaintances.

“What’s this charm?” Yaxley asked Granger. “ _Prima—_ what does it do?”

“It measures the association between any magical object and a living being,” she said. “If the Granger Mudblood had a strong enough association with it, it could be used to track her through that bond. It was, as I say,” she added, “a highly experimental charm. It isn’t taught, and even _I_ occasionally had difficulty with it, but I would have thought a wizard like Ghosh …”

“But you can do it, then,” said Yaxley sharply, a note of excitement in his voice.

“Haven’t I just told you I had difficulty with it?” Granger said, her lips pursed. “And that was a decade ago.”

Crabbe rose slowly to his feet, looming over them all. He squared his shoulders, emphasizing the powerful arms that made his robes strain. “Do you want to help the Dark Lord,” he said with quiet menace, “or not?”

Granger swallowed and let the disdain melt from her face. “I … yes, of course I do. I’ll try. Just … just place the wand there, then.”

Draco watched with bated breath as Yaxley set Granger’s wand on the table. He and Granger both rose to their feet and moved toward it, and Draco felt his body tensing the way it had once tensed during Quidditch practice, ready to make a capture.

“It may take a while,” said Granger, holding out her hand for another wand as if the gesture meant nothing. “A few attempts. … But I’m sure I can. Yes. For the Dark Lord.”

Yaxley placed his own wand into Granger’s hand.

Granger took a deep breath and stepped back from the table. Her gaze flickered, for an infinitesimal moment, toward Draco.

“All right,” she said, focusing on her wand again. She drew a breath.

She lifted Yaxley’s wand.

In that instant, Draco lunged forward, snatched her wand from the table, and aimed it at Crabbe. Granger aimed at Yaxley. Both Death Eaters’ hands shot into their robes, but they hadn’t even drawn their wands when the nonverbal spells struck them.

Crabbe’s bulk was so formidable that the red jet of light from Draco’s _Stupefy_ didn’t even make him stumble. Instead he went rigid where he stood, then toppled to the ground with a resounding _thud._ Granger’s spell, on the other hand, had been a Full Body-Bind, which smacked Yaxley back into the wall. Rigid as a board, he teetered to one side and crashed to the stone floor, too.

Granger was breathing hard. She approached Yaxley, whose eyes were still wide open, fixed forward on her, his face fixed into an unmoving snarl.

She knelt before him. “I’m afraid,” she said, “you’ve underestimated _the Mudblood Granger_.” Her voice shook, but there was determination on her face. “As you can see, we aren’t afraid to come after your precious pure-blood families, Yaxley. We’ve done it to the Parkinsons and we’ll do it to the rest of your _loyal followers,_ too.”

She stood and stowed Yaxley’s wand in her robes. She glanced back at Draco, who had already taken his own wand from the table. Then she approached Crabbe, not without some trepidation, and took his wand from within his robes.

“Let’s go,” she said.

They exited Room Four and locked it behind them.

* * *

Hermione glanced over at Malfoy as they climbed the stairwell back up to Level Nine. They’d peeked in at all the courtrooms, and Hermione had claimed to be looking for _Madam Umbridge_ , to report sensitive information directly to her. A dark-haired, austere-looking witch had told them that Madam Umbridge had gone to her office to fetch the remainder of her files for her court proceedings.

Malfoy hadn’t made a sound during all this. Actually, he hadn’t spoken a single word since what Crabbe had said to him. At least he’d Stunned Crabbe when she’d needed him to.

As the grilles clattered open, and they boarded an empty lift, she said, “Are you all right?”

Malfoy glanced down at her and said, “What do you think?”

Hermione’s cheeks grew warm. It had been a stupid question. How would _she_ have felt if she’d found out Mr. Weasley had been indifferent to her death, or if Harry had found out she’d died and said, _Good riddance?_ What else could Malfoy feel right now besides shock?

“I’m really sorry,” she said quietly. “That must have been horrible.”

Malfoy didn’t reply.

“You know, maybe Cr—maybe Vincent didn’t tell his father what he was really thinking. If he was my father, I’d be scared to tell him the truth. Maybe—”

“Stop,” he said. He sounded more tired than angry.

Hermione closed her mouth and let out a long exhalation through her nose. She didn’t push the point.

Soon enough, other witches and wizards were crowding into the lift from the Atrium, and then from the upper floors, pushing her closer to Malfoy. Her shoulder touched his arm, and he tensed, but didn’t draw away; it was the same way he’d acted with the Dementors below.

She couldn’t stop thinking of the terrified faces of the other Muggle-borns on the benches. The temptation to conjure a Patronus and sweep the Dementors away had been so powerful, but she had never had such a strong Patronus as Harry, and if she failed … if the Dementors realized that there were impostors in their midst … no, they needed the Horcrux first. The Horcrux was the most important thing. It was a stroke of incredible fortune already that they’d found it.

Floor by floor, the Ministry employees who had boarded the lift exited it. By the third level, the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, it was nearly empty, and on the second, the last tall, curly-haired wizard exited, leaving her alone with Malfoy again.

“How … how do you think Umbridge found the Horcrux?” she asked.

He shook his head. The words seemed to make little impact. He was just looking ahead, his face slack, his thoughts clearly a thousand miles away.

“Level one,” said the voice in the lift. “Minister for Magic and support staff.”

The grilles clattered open to reveal a finely appointed corridor with thick purple carpets and gleaming wooden doors, each of which bore a shining brass nameplate. Hermione had never been to this part of the Ministry before. Malfoy was also looking around as if their surroundings were unfamiliar, actually as if he were still dazed by a recent blow, so she took the lead, striding forward until he fell into step at her heels.

“If we can find Umbridge in her office,” she whispered back to him, “I’ll bet we can overpower her. Then we’ll take the Horcrux and get out of here as quickly as we can.”

He didn’t answer. She glanced back at him, and he managed a rough, “Yeah.”

“If we have to put up a cover,” Hermione whispered, “should we have a kind of code word to attack? How about ‘pure-blood’? That should be easy enough to work into conversation.”

Malfoy nodded as they turned the corner, emerging into an open area filled with evenly spaced desks. Workers were waving their wands with perfect synchronicity over sheaves of brightly colored papers, which rose, folded themselves, and fell into stacks at the sides of the desks. Hermione’s eyes fell on the stacked papers and realized they’d been folded into rough pamphlets, whose headings read,

_MUDBLOODS  
and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society._

An illustration accompanied the words: a smiling rose being slowly strangled by a weed with fangs and a malevolent leer. Anger coiled in Hermione’s stomach, but she forced herself to display only calm. _We’re here for the Horcrux,_ she reminded herself. _The Horcruxes are what can stop all this._

The nearest pamphlet-folder glanced up at Hermione and Malfoy and lowered her wand, looking somewhat glad for a respite.

“Lost, are you?” she said.

Hermione surveyed her, in her simple uniform, with disdain. “Madam Umbridge’s office,” she sniffed.

“In there,” the worker said, nodding toward a door at the front of the regiment of desks.

Hermione strode forward, her hand curling around the handle of her wand in her pocket. As she and Malfoy approached the door, her steps faltered. Set into its center was a horribly familiar electric blue eye, fixed in a golden ring, swiveling from left to right.

Hermione felt a fresh surge of anger, and this time it was mixed with revulsion. The Death Eaters must have found Mad-Eye Moody’s body after the escape from Privet Drive—and raided it for its most valuable contents.

Her hand shook with rage as she knocked thrice on the door. She glanced over her shoulder. Malfoy looked less dazed than before. He was watching the door, and its eye, warily.

The door opened, and Hermione’s heart seemed to stop altogether. Their luck was poor: Umbridge was not alone. Two Aurors stood attendant at her lace-draped desk, and none other than the Minister for Magic himself, Pius Thicknesse, resplendent in gold and black robes, had opened the door.

“Astrantia,” said Thicknesse, his heavy slab of a forehead lifting in surprise. “Charles.”

“Minister,” said Hermione and Malfoy at the same time. “Such a pleasure,” Hermione added, extending her hand toward him. He took it and brushed it lightly against his mouth, making Hermione feel another wave of disgust.

 _He’s not responsible for all this,_ she reminded herself. _He was Head of Magical Law Enforcement before this. … He’s under the Imperius Curse._ Unfortunately, they had no chance of breaking the curse without the original caster present, and knowing that Thicknesse was acting against his will didn’t change the chill she felt to look into his oddly blank eyes.

Thicknesse stood back, allowing her and Malfoy into the office. It was a nest of unwelcome memory, adorned with the gamboling kitten plates and floral décor that Hermione remembered from Umbridge’s Hogwarts office.

“Ah,” said Umbridge with a sickly sweet smile, the Horcrux gleaming at her throat. “Minister, the Parkinsons came in to give information on wanted Mudbloods. I trust everything went well, Charles? Astrantia?”

“Very well, Dolores,” Hermione said, trying to fight back the surge of loathing she felt. “We thought we might ask for a …”

She couldn’t help it. Her voice trailed off as her eyes passed first over a poster of Harry’s face, emblazoned with the words UNDESIRABLE NO. 1, and then onto a book that stood atop a bookcase. Familiar blue eyes gazed back at her from its cover, eyes that she had just been forced to recall in vivid detail, lifeless and staring, as the Dementors had drifted past her in the courtroom hall. The cover of the book read, in curly green text, _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore,_ and the subheading, _by Rita Skeeter, bestselling author of_ Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?

Umbridge followed Hermione’s sightline and smiled even more widely. “Astrantia,” she said with a cluck of her tongue, “do you mean to tell me that you haven’t read it yet?”

“Not yet,” Hermione said. “Unfortunately.”

“We can’t have that! It’s simply marvelous.” Umbridge tittered in that innocent way that Hermione detested so much. “To think that Albus Dumbledore acted like a Muggle-lover for decades, when he knew all along the dangers of Muggle-borns. Here …” She bustled to the bookcase, took the book, and pressed it into Hermione’s hands, her toadlike eyes bulging in apparent glee. “Take this one, and I’ll buy another. Skeeter deserves my Galleons, if no one else!”

Hermione’s thoughts were whirling—what did Umbridge mean about Dumbledore _knowing the dangers of Muggle-borns?—_ but she smiled in a way that she hoped looked conspiratorial. “Oh, you’re too kind. I look forward to it.”

“Dolores,” Malfoy said, his voice mostly steady, “we wondered if we could have a quick private word.”

“It’s about our Pansy,” Hermione added. “We know she idolized you when you taught at Hogwarts, and…”

Pius Thicknesse cleared his throat quietly from the door. Umbridge’s eyes flew to him. She hastened back to her desk, where she swept a stack of folders into her arms. “Ooh—I’m very sorry, Astrantia. I must be getting back down to the courtrooms. Dawlish, Marten, and I only needed some final identifying information on the Mudbloods downstairs. … Why don’t you walk with us? We can always discuss dear Pansy on the way down.”

They had no choice but to follow. Hermione fed _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_ into the beaded bag in her pocket as they moved back through the purple-carpeted corridors of Level One, Pius Thicknesse murmuring in quiet, indistinguishable tones to Umbridge, who had a sycophantic smile pasted on her face. Hermione experienced a surge of hope when Thicknesse bade them goodbye at the main corridor. He peeled off toward the large door at the end of the hall whose plaque read _Minister for Magic_ and disappeared inside.

They called the lift, but as they waited, Hermione felt the press of panic anew. They couldn’t follow Umbridge all the way back down to the courtrooms. Malfoy was affected by the Dementors too strongly to be of much use if they did. But the locket was so close… if she could only reach out and grab it…

They couldn’t start a fight in the open corridor, where everyone could hear. They would have to wait until the lift door closed. But, Hermione remembered, the next floor down was the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. If other Aurors entered the lift, they would have no hope at all of overcoming their numbers. This was it: the best chance they would have. A window of seconds.

The lift arrived, and they filed in. “Well?” Dolores said, smiling up at Hermione. “How has Pansy been managing in her… seventh year, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Hermione said as the doors clattered shut. “She and her pure-blood friends have been—”

Malfoy moved immediately. Hermione tore her own wand from her robe pocket, ready to cast.

But the Aurors reacted with near inhuman speed. Dawlish was already sending a hex whizzing toward Malfoy, and Marten, the taller of the Aurors, flung himself in front of Umbridge, even as Hermione dove for her throat, her hand clawing, scrabbling, desperately seeking the Horcrux. _Petrificus Totalus!_ Hermione thought, trying to aim, but Marten ducked the jet of light, and his counter-jinx hit her squarely in the chest. She let out a hard gasp, and her body slammed backward into the controls of the lift, which lurched to a stop mere seconds after it had started its descent.

Umbridge had let out a high-pitched squeal at the first spell, but now her wand was in her hand, too, and Hermione saw, as she flung herself out of the way of Marten’s second hex, Umbridge cast a whirling disk of venomous purple light toward Malfoy.

“No!” Hermione yelled—too late. Malfoy had lurched backward, slashing his wand out to deflect Dawlish’s Stunning Spell, and moved into the path of the whirling disk.

It sliced deep into his shoulder. Dark red blood sprayed out in a way that looked lurid, unreal.

Hermione screamed. She acted without thinking. Dawlish’s deflected Stunner had ricocheted into the controls, and the doors of the lift were shuddering halfway open again, revealing the purple-carpeted floor of Level One a foot and a half above the threshold. Hermione threw herself into Malfoy and knocked him through the opening doors. Even as they toppled onto the purple carpet, Hermione spun back on her heel, flicking her wand in a last, desperate motion— _Gellara!_

The doors of the lift didn’t just slam shut. They melted together in a single smooth rippling motion, as if five-thousand-degree heat had rolled over them, sealing away an instant of Umbridge’s furious scream. It wouldn’t hold them long—ten minutes, perhaps, until they tried the correct combination of counter-jinxes—but it would hold them.

Hermione spun back toward Malfoy, who was on his knees, one hand clasped over the wound, sucking in hard breaths. “Malfoy?” she panted. “Malfoy!”

“It’s—bad,” he said, his voice harsh. His head twitched toward her, and now she saw the way his black robes were glistening. Blood had already soaked through them down to his biceps, down to his pectoral. “No, no no,” she breathed, kneeling, fumbling in her pocket for her beaded bag. She grabbed the Dittany from where she’d stored it, but when she poured three drops over the wound, it hissed and didn’t react. It wasn’t an ordinary wound. Umbridge had cast a powerful curse.

But Malfoy was lurching to his feet, his face crazed. “Stairs,” he said through gritted teeth. “Can’t—can’t be seen.”

He was right. Hermione looked up in dread, wondering if anyone had heard the duel inside the lift, or the split instant of Umbridge’s scream before the Sealing Charm had transformed the lift into a holding chamber—but no one was coming out of their offices, or around the corner.

Supporting Malfoy at the elbow of his good arm, Hermione staggered toward the stairwell and kicked the door wide. _Scourgify,_ she thought, flicking her wand back at the red droplets they’d trailed. She tried to bear as much of his weight as she could as they eased down the steps, stopping intermittently to eliminate their bloody tracks.

As they reached Level Two, though, she heard the door open on the floor below them. Someone was coming up from Level Three. She rapped Malfoy, then herself on the head, Disillusioning them, and they darted through the door of Level Two.

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was very different from the plush-carpeted Level One. At the end of a short corridor, a pair of heavy oak doors was flung open to reveal a loud, crowded area filled with cubicles. Voices rang across dark hardwoods, and what looked like a boxing ring had been erected in the center of the cubicles, encased by shimmering enchantments, two Aurors dueling within.

“Here, in here,” Hermione whispered, hauling Malfoy’s sagging body toward a narrow, unimportant-looking door. She felt a rush of relief as they slipped into an ordinary broom cupboard.

“ _Colloportus!_ ” she panted, and the lock clicked shut. “ _Muffliato!”_ she added.

Then, in the light of the flickering orange orb overhead, she removed their Disillusionment charms. Even as she did so, she felt her skin bubbling, her bones stretching, her robes now ill-fitting on a taller frame. The Polyjuice had worn off.

Malfoy faded back into view. He was himself again, too—and the sight of him terrified her. He had collapsed back into a jumble of wooden crates, agonized sounds coming from his half-open mouth. His lean frame was swimming in Mr. Parkinson’s too-large robes, the soaked area of which had daubed blood up his neck. Every hint of color had drained from his skin, leaving him marble-white, and his arm hung limp, his fingers twitching. In the unsteady orange light, his pale eyes were wild, fixed upon her.

She was beside him in an instant, one hand hovering uselessly over the injury. “Do you know what that curse was?” she said frantically.

He let out an agonized laugh. “Think I will—if you—don’t?” he gasped, fixing his long fingers over the slippery gash. “God, I think it’s—getting worse …”

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think, but all she could think of was the shock on his face as the spell had lacerated him, and the smell of blood now permeating the broom cupboard. If she’d had the diadem, she thought wildly, she would have put it on, knowing its effects, knowing everything, just to remember a bit more clearly. Or had she never known the answer to this? How were she and her seven years’ study meant to compete with Umbridge’s decades of accumulated knowledge? She was too young for this—she was untrained, she was …

“Please,” he panted.

Her eyes opened. Malfoy was still looking at her, his face shining with sweat, his grey eyes too bright. “Come on, Granger,” he said, his voice filled with pain. “Come on. … Just—another … test.”

She swallowed hard. If this had been a test, it would have been fourth year. “… _Identification strategies,”_ said Moody’s growling voice in her mind. “ _So, you’ve been hit in battle. What do you do? Sit around crying and wailing and waiting for the pain to end? Not unless you want to die, you don’t. No: you’ve got to know what’s_ happened _first, if you’re going to do anything. Three simple questions, then.”_ The chalk hitting the blackboard violently. Moody’s emphatic scrawl. “ _How did it look? How did it sound? What has it done?”_

How _had_ the curse looked? Hermione closed her eyes and saw it: a disk of purple light. Not pulsating, not bouncing, but spinning fine and exact like a buzz-saw. So it wasn’t a self-multiplying curse or a single-striker, but a curse rooted in repetition. It hadn’t been indigo, like blood-specific curses, or lilac, like wasting curses, but vivid violet: brute force, physical magic.

How had it sounded? Silent. So it wouldn’t be a Conscious Curse, or a curse with a natural derivative like burning, freezing, or electrifying.

What had it _done?_

“I have to look at it,” Hermione whispered.

Malfoy’s head twitched in the tiniest nod. “Do it.” His eyelids were moving unsteadily now, hooding his eyes.

Hermione lifted the shoulder of the too-large robes and aimed her wand as carefully as she could with her shaking hand. _“Diffindo!”_

The seam split and revealed the wound. It was deep into the flesh, and Hermione felt faint, longed to look away, but knew she mustn’t. Blood was still coming from the injury, as fresh and bright as that first spatter in the lift had been. It was unnatural. It was regular. It was as if, with every pulse, the wound was being made anew.

The answer came to her like a lightning strike: a section in _Darkest Curses for the Darkest Foes,_ which sat on one of the shelves in the Potter cottage at this moment, which she had read in June for the express purpose of the Horcrux hunt. _The Curse of Perpetual Tearing, notte to be defended, a moste grievous vyolence unto a prized enemy, shall cause pain uppon pain a hundredfolde as if the Curse hadde ben caste ten thousand times…_

She knew the counter-curse. She remembered.

Hermione drew her wand, placed its shaking tip to Malfoy’s shoulder, drew a clockwise triangle above the injury, and whispered, “ _Antagra Vertere.”_

A hissing noise issued from her wandtip. Out from the injury came a seam of white light, like a trace of lightning. Malfoy let out a cry through gritted teeth, his tall body rigid. His bloodied hand thrashed out, found her wrist, and squeezed so hard that pain shot up her own arm. “Okay,” she gasped, “hold on, it’s all right, it’s going to be all right—”

“ _Ah,_ ” he panted as the last trace of light was jerked from the wound and into Hermione’s wand. The counter-curse had taken, but his hand was still clamped around her wrist, his face still contorted in pain. Hermione fumbled to withdraw the Essence of Dittany again. She clamped her teeth on the cork to unstopper it and tipped three drops onto the wound. Malfoy’s body jerked as a puff of greenish smoke issued from his shoulder. When the smoke cleared, the wound was sticky and congealed.

But he didn’t make any sound of relief. His eyes had fallen shut. His body slackened, and his hand fell limply from her wrist. He was as white as chalk.

Hermione froze in place. “M-Malfoy?” she said, her voice high and uncontrolled. “ _Malfoy?_ ”

He didn’t move.

She scrambled closer, bending over the crates to press a hand to his chest, then to his neck, trying to feel a pulse, but everything was slippery and hot with blood, and her own pulse was pounding so hard, too hard to allow her to feel anything but fear. Had she done something wrong? What could it have been? Her knees were on the crates now, her body hunched low over his, and she thought wildly of Crabbe’s words in the detention room, the way the phrase _no real loss there_ had clearly plunged into Malfoy like a drill. She was remembering what _she’d_ told him—that they wouldn’t ask him to die for them.

She seized his face between her hands. His skin was slick with sweat. Strands of white-blond hair fell over her fingertips. “Draco,” she said, her voice feverish. “ _Draco!_ ”

For a long moment, nothing.

Then his eyelids flickered and eased open.

Relief surged through her, as cold and strong as winter wind. She drew a long, shaky breath. _Merlin._ She’d thought—she’d actually thought … but it wasn’t true. It hadn’t happened. He’d only blacked out for a moment, probably from shock or pain.

Now his eyes refocused. A note of confusion colored his expression. She felt his breath against her cheek, and all at once, she realized how close he was, how far she had leaned toward him. She could see the delicate webs of his irises, like spun silver, and a tiny scar like the mark of a fingernail upon the curve of his cheek, and every mote of sweat that had beaded upon his brow.

Hermione felt suddenly paralyzed. His gaze was moving slowly, almost curiously over her face, lingering first on one cheek and then the other, on the tip of her nose, on her forehead, and then, finally, on her lips, and Hermione felt something quite aside from fear clench in her stomach. She felt as if she were trapped in the moment before the Time-Turner began to spin, when time stretched impossibly between present and past, absolutely immobile like held breath. She realized her hands were still pressed to either side of his face, warm and tan and trembling against the marble of his complexion.

She drew back from him so quickly that she nearly tripped on a crate. “I—you still need something for the blood loss,” she blurted out. “Yes. I-I’ll have to brew a Blood Replenishment Draught at some point. But for now …”

Why was her pulse racing? The fear, that was it. They weren’t safe yet. it had scarcely been five minutes since the elevator, somehow, though time felt uneven and unreliable at the moment. Hands clumsy, she fished out a stack of Skiving Snackboxes and extracted a box of Nosebleed Nougat and a Blood Blisterpod. She twisted off the purple half of the Nougat, then proffered it and the Blisterpod toward Malfoy. “Here. The Blisterpod is a low-grade blood replenisher. This half of the Nougat should keep it from feeding new blood into the wound.”

He took the chew and the pod with a trembling hand and slipped them between his lips, and his jaw worked slowly for a moment. Then he swallowed.

Hermione checked her watch. Yes. Time was of the essence. They had to get back down to the Atrium before Umbridge, Dawlish, and Marten cut their way out of that Sealing Charm. The effects of the Nougat and the Blisterpod would take ninety seconds or so to set in; hopefully they would give Malfoy enough energy to move. She wished she could use _Rennervate_ to revive him, but that spell agitated wounds and would almost certainly reopen his shoulder.

She got to her feet.

“Where are you going?” Malfoy said.

“I’ll be right back,” Hermione said. She swigged the last dregs of her Polyjuice Potion. It would hardly buy her five minutes, but hopefully it would be enough.

Once transformed, she left the closet and strode into the Auror Office, walking with purpose, eyeing any Auror who looked her way with disdain. She wasn’t questioned. She scanned the cubicles, not letting the bursts of light and crackling sound from the sparring chamber distract her, nor the yells from the spectators.

As she rounded a corner, she saw her: Nymphadora Tonks, her hair blue as an evening sky, frowning down at a stack of paperwork.

Hermione hurried up to her cubicle, where several photographs of Tonks and Lupin hung, smiling, among many maps and charts. “Nymphadora Tonks?” she sniffed.

“Yeah?” Tonks glanced up. “Who are you?”

Hermione waited for another _bang_ to come from the sparring chamber, and as voices called out in the aftermath, she lowered her voice and whispered, “It’s Hermione Granger. I’m under Polyjuice.”

Tonks blanched. Her face grew very pale. “ _Hermi_ —what in the name of Merlin—”

“We need to get out of here. They’ve figured us out. The alarm will go up any minute now. Is there another way out besides the Atrium?”

Tonks asked no more questions. “Quick response exit,” she said immediately, her voice low.

“What’s that? Where?”

“The Aurors use it so we don’t have to deal with those bloody lifts when there’s an emergency. It’s at the west corner of the floor through the iron grilles. Password’s ‘Bowtruckle.’”

Two minutes later, Malfoy was staggering back to his feet as Charles Parkinson. Hermione had siphoned the blood out of his robes and repaired the fabric. He was leaning more heavily on her than ever as they tottered out of the broom cupboard and down the western corridor, away from the noise of the Auror Office, toward a pair of black iron grilles.

They were halfway down the hall when the alarm bells began to clang.

Over the din, a magically magnified voice rang throughout the hallways: “ _Attention all Ministry of Magic employees. Two highly dangerous fugitives have broken onto Ministry premises and attacked members of the Ministry. They are armed and …_ ”

Hermione and Malfoy hadn’t waited for details. At the first sound of the bells, they’d broken into a sprint, Malfoy’s face contorted in pain. Even as they ran, doors were flying open up and down the hall.

“Bowtruckle!” Hermione gasped, breaking out of her run in front of the grilles. They leapt apart to reveal a massive black hearth, and a silver box of Floo powder dropped down on a metal arm. Hermione glanced back and saw Malfoy steps away, cradling his arm, his face twisted in pain. She climbed into the grate as the Department of Magical Law Enforcement officials began to shout, to point, to chase after them. Malfoy climbed onto the grate, too, and Hermione said in a quiet but clear voice, “Parkinson Estate!”

She flung the Floo Powder on the grate, and the whirl of green flame erupted around them. By the time they staggered out on the other end, Hermione’s skin was beginning to itch and bubble, melting, transforming.

Harry and Ron, who had been waiting before the hearth, jumped up out of their seats and opened their mouths. “No time,” Hermione panted. “Help me with Draco, he’s badly hurt. We need to leave now. They’ll be here any moment.”

Harry nodded, seized them by the elbows, and turned on his heel. In the instant before they Disapparated, Hermione caught a glimpse of the sitting room. Harry and Ron had done a good job: the place was in ruins, and the Parkinsons themselves lay, still unconscious, amidst the rubble. This had been part of the plan, if things went wrong: to smash the place up so it looked like the Parkinsons had put up a good struggle.

Hermione could only hope it would be enough. She had a small, sinking feeling that it wouldn’t be.

They stepped out of the suffocating darkness into the back garden of Number 7, Hartbridge Way.

Hermione doubled over, panting for breath, as she finished transforming back into her own body. When she had caught her breath, she straightened up and gazed around. The sun was high overhead, the grass and tall hedges a rich, reassuring green, the tassels on the twins’ tent moving in the breeze. The relief of being back at headquarters was a physical thing, as if she’d been released from a vise.

She took a long, slow breath. They were safe.

She glanced over at Draco. He was transforming back into himself, and looked nearly delirious with pain. “You need to rest,” she said. “Ron, Harry, help?”

“We’ll get him,” Ron said. They ducked into the tent, Draco held up between Harry and Ron, Hermione holding the flap for them.

“ _Ow,_ ” Draco said through gritted teeth as Harry jostled his arm. “God, watch it, Potter. I thought you were supposed to be coordinated.”

“And I thought _you_ weren’t supposed to act the hero.”

Draco made a disbelieving noise. “I wasn’t acting the—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ron said.

Hermione followed the boys into Draco’s room, where they helped him out of his shoes and bloodstained outer robes. He lay back slowly on the bed, eyes squinted shut, his mouth open as he breathed, his hand fixed over his injury.

“What happened?” Harry said quietly.

“I’ll tell you later,” Hermione said. “Go on, you two—I’ll catch you up in a moment.”

Harry and Ron nodded and retreated from the guest bedroom, closing the door behind themselves. Hermione hesitated, then approached Draco’s bedside. She felt an odd rush of heat, remembering the way he’d looked at her in the Ministry, under the flickering orange light.

“Well,” she said. “That could have gone more smoothly.”

A pained smirk twitched at Draco’s mouth. “You don’t say.” He settled back into the pillows, face drawn with discomfort. “Didn’t even _get_ the bloody Horcrux.”

“But we know who has it, now.”

“Yeah, great. So now you three just have to rob a top Ministry official who’ll be under guard every hour of every day. Doubly so, now that she’s already a known target. Can’t see how you could possibly fail.”

“It’s funny,” Hermione said, tapping her chin in mock thought, “how you say ‘ _you three,’_ as if you won’t chime in about all our plans, complain about how we’re doing it wrong, and eventually, mysteriously, wind up involved.”

“What are you suggesting, Granger?”

She shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said innocently. “Maybe that being the arrogant little snot of the group doesn’t actually exclude you from the group.”

For a moment, Draco looked somewhat disturbed by this observation. Then he pulled a massively exaggerated yawn to cover it. “Yeah, well,” he drawled, “I think it’s about time I retire from the group. I mean, with this injury I’ve got, I don’t think you all seem nearly grateful enough. Maybe I’ll just sit in the garden, watching you flop around uselessly, and wait for you to come crawling back to me.”

“That’ll never happen.”

“Oh, really? Why?”

“Because you always need to have the last word, Malfoy. Which, I hate to say it, makes you the one doing the crawling back.”

“Excuse me? _I_ always need to have the last word? Granger, have you had a conversation with yourself recently?”

“No, I haven’t. Is that something you do in the mirror? Is it fun?”

Draco glared up at her. “Granger, are you not going to let me rest, even now that I’ve got an honest-to-God war wound to nurse?”

She restrained a smile. “We’ve still got some Sleepiness Solution left. I’ll bring it in a moment.” Her smile faded. “But I … I wanted to tell you something, actually.”

She took a deep, slow breath, surveying him. An odd, bittersweet feeling had come over her. These moments had been happening more and more often, recently, like premature nostalgia for the life she was living at that moment. Whatever this was that she’d developed with Malfoy, this … this odd friendship, or at least, mutual openness in a way that they had no real business being open—she wanted it to survive. She could admit that much to herself.

She imagined a world where she simply didn’t tell him about the piece of parchment in her pocket. It was oddly tempting.

“Spit it out, Granger,” he said.

“All right.” She tried to smile. “I … I spoke to Tonks at the Ministry. And I asked her where your parents are. They’re in a village on the coast called New Cathcove. She brought them to a beach house where her mum used to take the family.” Hermione drew a slip of parchment from her pocket and set it on the bedside table. “This is their address.”

Draco didn’t say anything. His eyes were fixed on the parchment for a long time, but eventually they moved back to Hermione.

His face had changed. The omnipresent hints of suspicion and fear and self-satisfaction in his expression had faded away, and there he was: the Draco Malfoy she was beginning to see more often, even to recognize, to know. This was the Draco Malfoy who had stared in her home when she’d asked about Dolohov, and again in Ron’s room when she’d been frightened of him; he was the one who had been shaken by the phoenix song. This was the Draco Malfoy who had told her in the sitting room, blank-faced, how it felt to live on the edge of death. He could open himself by degrees, set himself ajar. He was the one who had said her name to shake her back to herself.

But she’d given him the parchment, and so, that was it. Any confidence between them was nothing when compared to seventeen years’ upbringing, a lifetime’s reassurance of his own pure-blooded superiority. He would bring his parents here. He would be theirs again. The old Malfoy would be steadily rebuilt on a foundation of centuries, of ancestry, of tradition.

This Draco Malfoy, ephemeral thing, would slip back inside, into the dark sea behind his mask, and, like ice in water, he would disappear.

“Get some rest,” she said.

But she looked at him a moment longer, because she wanted to remember the sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao how much time did I spend playing around with early modern english variants to write that single sentence of _Darkest Curses for the Darkest Foes_? too long.
> 
> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com/)


	12. Late Arrivals

“ _Umbridge?_ ” Ron and Harry said at the same time, aghast.

“I know,” Hermione said. “I can’t work it out either. How did she get her hands on the locket, especially if the Scavengers never found and resold it?”

Ron recovered first. “Could be someone else found it,” he suggested. “Or maybe Mundungus did nick it at some point. He dumped all his stuff into the black market, didn’t he? It could’ve changed hands.”

“Well,” Harry said, “as long as we get it off her before it changes hands again.” He sighed. “I wish you could’ve just grabbed it, Hermione …”

“You don’t think we tried?” Hermione said hotly. “How do you _think_ Draco got that injury?”

Ron gave her an odd look. “Since when do you call Malfoy ‘ _Draco_ ’?”

“What?” Hermione blinked. “Oh, I—I didn’t even notice.”

“Never mind that,” Harry said impatiently. “What happened?”

Hermione relayed how they’d escaped the Death Eaters’ custody and tried to steal the Horcrux. By the end of the story, Ron had gone pale.

“It’s all right,” she reassured him. “I don’t think Umbridge could have guessed I was trying to get the Horcrux. I wasn’t close enough. From her vantage, I’m sure it looked as if I was trying to grab her, rather than the locket.”

Harry nodded. “That’s something. Otherwise she might start wondering about it.”

“Exactly,” she said. “On the other hand, Dra— _Malfoy_ said, and I think he’s right, that she’s bound to be under heavier protection now that we’ve made an attack on her. I’m sure they’ll tighten security at the Ministry, too. They know we’ve got Polyjuice Potion on our hands, so they’d have to be idiots not to use Probity Probes and other detection methods at the entrance.”

They sat in heavy silence for a moment. Then Harry said, “Still. We know where the Horcrux is, now, even if it’ll be hard to get it off her. It’s not like she sleeps at the Ministry.”

Hermione’s spirits lifted slightly. “That’s true.”

“Think about it,” Harry said with tense excitement, standing up from the delicate iron chair and pacing the cottage’s small patio. “We have one out of the four Horcruxes, and we know where the snake and the locket are. That only really leaves the cup. We’re loads better off than we were at the start of summer.”

Ron, who had been quiet since Hermione’s description of the duel in the lift, let out a small snort at this. “Sorry, mate, but it’s not exactly reassuring to know that one of them is with You-Know-Who all the time.”

Harry waved this off. “We always knew we’d have to make an outright attack on him at some point, didn’t we? I don’t think we should worry about the snake for now.”

Hermione’s eyes strayed back toward the tent. She was exhausted, though it was only late afternoon. The day seemed to have lasted a week. She thought of Draco, who had fallen asleep almost instantly after drinking the Sleepiness Solution she’d brought him, his sweat-strung hair falling across his forehead as his head had tipped against the pillow. The silent, sunny guest room had been so peaceful after the chaos of the Ministry. As he’d drifted off, she’d had the urge to lie down in the plush upholstered window seat and close her eyes, too, rather than going outside to recount the entire ordeal to Harry and Ron.

She glanced back to them. Harry made brief eye contact with Ron, then stepped off the patio into the garden’s lush, overgrown grass. “I’m going to start putting dinner together,” he said, and as Hermione made to stand, he motioned her to sit. “No, no need to help.”

Hermione didn’t argue as Harry hurried into the tent. But when she turned back to Ron, she felt suddenly nervous. He was still pale, and he was sitting up a bit too straight.

“I … I wasn’t worried about the Horcrux,” he said.

“Sorry?”

“You said, ‘ _It’s all right, Umbridge couldn’t have guessed I was trying to get the Horcrux.’_ That’s not what I was worried about.”

Hermione knew, then, why Harry had hurried away. She’d even been waiting for it to happen, after what Draco had said—that Ron was in love with her.

She felt the urge to leap up from her own patio chair and dash after Harry into the tent, making some excuse over her shoulder. She didn’t want this to happen—not now. She wanted to _rest_. The image of the wound in Draco’s shoulder was still passing intermittently over her vision, like surf coming up to lap at a sand dune, and Ron was doing this now?

“I almost couldn’t go back to the Parkinsons’ place,” Ron went on in a rush, “knowing they had you. That coin was the only reason I didn’t go into the Ministry. Harry and I talked about it. He was for it, actually, going after the pair of you, but I knew you’d want me to make sure he was safe.” Ron was rubbing the back of his neck. His ears were bright red.

Hermione couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Her hands were fixed hard over her knees. She felt as if someone had cast an immobilizing charm on her.

“I know I was a prat last year,” Ron said, “with Lavender. Over summer, I kept thinking about how we never really, properly made up last year, after all of it. And maybe that’s why I never … because I didn’t know whether you were still thinking about it. But today was …” He swallowed hard. “Well, I … I sort of realised I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Hermione could see how much it took to say the words. Ron’s whole face had gone red, now, and he swallowed nervously, and his fingers were interlocking and unweaving, and God, she didn’t want to hurt him. But he’d said it, and so she had to reply. There was no getting out of it.

“Ron,” she said faintly. “That … that’s really …” She closed her eyes, took a shaky breath, and started again. “If this were last year, or even a few months ago, I would have been over the moon.”

The sight of Ron’s face falling, his realisation that this confession wasn’t going to go the way he’d hoped, was agonizing to her. She wanted to stop talking. She wanted, actually, to cry.

 _Be brave,_ she told herself. _Don’t cry. Don’t make him comfort you, on top of everything._

“But I don’t feel the same way anymore,” she said, trying to inject strength into her voice. “I thought about it all through June, too. And you know how badly I wanted to be with you last year. But now it’s … things have changed so much, so quickly, and I feel differently now.”

Ron’s face was no longer red. He looked drained, defeated. “Why?” he said, sounding hoarse.

“I don’t know,” she said hopelessly. All she knew was, when she thought about how she’d sobbed over Ron in bathrooms last year, comparing herself with Lavender, feeling unlovable and dependent, it all felt definitively in the past tense, practically in the third person. It was far away from her now, and growing farther every day—a passing storm of feelings, the cumulative effect of years’ bickering and fighting as if they’d already been in a passionate relationship. Now she felt clearer-headed. She’d come out of the storm.

She no longer blamed Ron for their fights; she could feel that they belonged to her, too. Yes, he could be thoughtless, but Hermione knew she could be oversensitive. She knew she held grudges too deeply and responded with too much force. And that was the problem. She needed the freedom to draw all the way back from Ron when they fought, for weeks at a time if necessary, the way friends could, rather than ending every day in stony silence or defensive glares or hurtful words when they were in a rough patch.

Hermione had never thought two people needed to be totally similar to love each other properly, but sitting there, in the garden, she imagined Ron with someone a bit more like himself. She imagined someone more easygoing, who could laugh away his accidental moments of insensitivity rather than taking them so deeply inside that they hardened into anger and resentment. For him to be with that kind of person would be so much easier for him—for the both of them.

A breeze blew through the garden. Ron’s face was pained. Hermione felt a strange, sad pang of fondness for this boy who loved her, so fiercely protective in moments of hardship, so brave, loyal, and supportive—but Harry was those things, too. And, she realised, she wanted them both in her life in the same way: as her two best friends, joking and Quidditch-obsessed and a bit careless, neither of them so in control of what she was feeling.

She wished she could take his hand in comfort, but she knew it would hurt him even more.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I think we missed our chance.”

* * *

Ron was trying. Hermione could tell. After his confession, he couldn’t seem to look at her, or say anything polysyllabic to her—but his silences were heavily guarded rather than hostile, which was something. He hadn’t lashed out at her, either, though he had made jeering comments to Harry a couple of times, with the air of someone who desperately needed a negative outlet.

Harry didn’t snap back. Hermione knew he was making allowances. “I’m really sorry,” she told Harry the next morning, when they were making breakfast and Ron was out in the garden. “I know he’s taking it out on you.”

“It’s fine,” Harry said. “I’m just … surprised, I guess. I thought you felt the same way.”

Hermione sighed. “I did. I mean, I used to. I think going on the run, and Dumbledore dying, and … I don’t know. I feel like such a different person these days than I was at Hogwarts, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“How’s breakfast coming?” said Ron’s voice from the tent’s entrance. They both startled and looked across the sitting room, where his face was framed in the flap, looking at them with something like mistrust.

“Fine,” said Harry with an unnecessarily guilty expression.

“Fifteen minutes, Ron,” Hermione added.

Ron grunted, avoiding her eyes, and ducked back out of the tent.

Hermione glanced at Harry. “He doesn’t think _we_ …”

Harry took a while to respond, slicing onions with steady hands. He was the one who helped her cook the most, having had years’ practice with the Dursleys. “He’s brought it up, yeah,” he said quietly. “I told him that it’s never … that we’re not … I don’t know if he believed me, though.”

“Maybe I should tell him—”

“ _No,_ ” Harry blurted. “Er, sorry, Hermione, I just … don’t think he really wants to talk with you about any of this, right now.”

“No, of course,” said Hermione. “You’re right. It was a silly idea.” Her face felt even more heated. “I’m going to go and check whether Draco’s awake. I mean, Malfoy. I mean—oh, never mind.”

She let out a long breath as she cracked the door to Draco’s room. It was strange to feel _relieved_ at the prospect of Draco Malfoy, but out here there were wounded looks from Ron and awkward silences from Harry and the constant feeling of her stomach being wrung like a washcloth. In there, things were simple. Simpler, anyway.

Then she slipped inside and found Draco sitting up in bed, shirtless.

Hermione’s entire face went hot. “I—er,” she said, looking away. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Draco said.

Her eyes strayed back to him. He’d conjured white bandages onto himself, strapped across his chest and beneath one arm to apply pressure to his shoulder. Unlike Harry and Ron, who jumped and hurried into their room whenever Hermione saw one of them leaving the bathroom in a towel after a shower, Draco didn’t seem to care at all about being half-naked in front of her. _Not that he has anything to be self-conscious about_ , she caught herself thinking for a split instant, before looking away again, mortified. Where had _that_ thought come from? What was wrong with her?

“What, Granger?” he said, sounding amused now.

“Nothing,” she said, very loudly, to the middle distance. “I expected you to be _clothed,_ that’s all.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Does this break your vow of lifelong chastity?”

She gaped at him. “You—I— _excuse m—_ ”

“My shoulder’s feeling much better, by the way. Thanks for asking.”

“I was _going_ to ask!”

“Yes, well, you seemed distracted, so I thought I’d cut to the point.”

And now he was smirking at her. Hermione wanted to die.

It was strange, actually, seeing that smirk again. For the first time in a long while, he looked like the boy he’d been at Hogwarts, pleased and smug and unjustifiably arrogant. Almost refreshingly uncomplicated.

Except—since when had Draco Malfoy been _good-looking?_ When had _that_ happened? She’d never thought about his looks at school at all. She supposed his being a spiteful little toerag had sort of precluded those kinds of thoughts, but now that they didn’t loathe each other anymore …

This was ridiculous. She had to steer this conversation back onto course. “You look like you’ve done a good job on the bandages, at any rate,” she said, bustling over to the bedside. She tried to channel Madam Pomfrey, whom she was certain had never gone red upon seeing someone’s left pectoral. Or someone’s prominent collarbones. Or the smooth contours of the spot that someone’s biceps melted into their deltoids. Yes, these were things that Hermione was absolutely not noticing at all. “I’ll make a Numbing Draught after breakfast,” she said, her voice still too loud, “and we can soak a new dressing in it to change this afternoon. I’ll bring some breakfast in a moment.”

“I can do all that myself, you know.” He still sounded amused. “I’m not actually bedridden.”

“You should be. That was a serious curse. Do you _want_ it to start bleeding again?”

“Yeah,” Draco said. “It’s my dearest wish, Granger. Could you come and wrench it open, please?”

She grimaced. “You’re hilarious.”

“I know.”

There was a brief pause. Hermione took a deep breath, glancing back toward the door. Draco seemed completely fine, but she wanted an excuse to linger, not to go back out into all _that_.

“What?” said Draco.

She looked back at him. “I-it’s nothing.”

Draco lifted one thin eyebrow. “God,” he said, looking almost impressed. “You’re a worse liar than Goyle, Granger. I didn’t think that was physically possible.”

She sighed. He was going to have to deal with the new atmosphere when he came back out into the tent. She might as well tell him. She took a step back and sat down on the cushioned window seat, playing with one of its red tassels. “Well, if you must know, Ron told me … yesterday, he …” Her face was turning hot again.

“Ah.” Draco’s lip curled. “I get it. You can spare me the grisly details.”

Hermione scowled at him. “I thought you’d have wanted the details, to make fun of us.”

“I’d rather not get actually, physically murdered by Weasley, thanks.” There was another short pause, and Draco said, “I did _tell_ you. If you didn’t prepare for it, then that’s your own fault, really.”

“I was prepared,” Hermione said. “I mean, I think it went as well as possible, under the circumstances.”

“Which circumstances?”

“Well, I … I said I didn’t want to be with him.”

“Right.” Draco turned over the book that had been sitting in his lap; Hermione saw that it was _The Tales of Beedle the Bard._ “So,” he said, “you’ve picked Potter, then.”

“I’ve … _what?_ ” Hermione’s guilty feelings melted into surprise, and then, suddenly, amusement. A laugh spilled out of her. “Excuse me, have you been secretly theorizing about this, or something?”

Now she saw, with increasing incredulity, that there was a pink tinge just brushed upon the curves of Draco’s high cheekbones. “Look, Granger,” he said, “just because I’m stuck here with you three and I have to be subjected to your adolescent love triangle—”

“There is no love triangle!”

“Oh, yeah?” he drawled. “You haven’t been pining after Potter at all? _We’re not leaving you?_ ”

Hermione was so astonished to hear her own words verbatim from Draco’s lips that she just stared at him, openmouthed. She’d had no idea that he’d been paying attention to what was happening between the three of them, or indeed that he cared about anything that didn’t affect him personally.

“What’s it to you?” she said.

“Nothing. Like I said, I’m stuck here. What else is there to think about?”

And she could recognise that he, unlike her, was a very good liar. He sounded lightly exasperated, and his grey eyes were flashing with very convincing annoyance.

Yet somehow, she could still tell that he was lying. He, Draco Malfoy, had seriously been spending time thinking about whether she loved Ron back, or whether she had secret feelings for Harry.

She couldn’t help it. She let out a slightly deranged giggle.

“Shut up,” Draco said, looking up at the ceiling. The pink tinge had spread across his cheeks.

She got to her feet. “I’ll be back in a—” She had to stifle another giggle. “—a moment. Harry should be nearly done with the eggs.”

She was nearly to the door when Draco said, “Granger. Hang on.”

Hermione looked back at him.

He was holding up _Beedle the Bard._ “You flagged ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers.’”

Hermione’s amusement faded. “Oh. Yes, I’d meant to come back to that—there was a rune I couldn’t find in _Spellman’s Syllabary._ The triangular one at the top of the page. Did you recognise it?” She frowned. “I don’t know if it’s even a rune … I’ve read and reread the section on derivatives and I think it might just be an illustration.”

“It’s not an illustration,” said Draco. “It was drawn in.”

“ _Drawn_ in?” Hermione hurried back to his bedside, grabbed the book out of his hand, and held it up to her face. From about an inch away, she could see that he was right. The mark hadn’t been printed, but drawn by a quill; she could see the irregular bleed of the ink into the parchment.

“You’re right,” she breathed. “But what does it mean? Do you know what it is?”

“No. I’ve never seen it before.”

“You know, it looks familiar … I could swear I’ve seen it somewhere before.” Hermione closed her eyes. A triangle enclosing a circle enclosing a line. Where had she seen it?

Where did she ever see arcane and unusual symbols? Her mind flew to Luna Lovegood, and then she remembered, suddenly, a shape gleaming on Xenophilius Lovegood’s chest at Bill and Fleur’s wedding. Was it the same symbol? Was she misremembering?

“Malfoy,” she said, “you didn’t talk to Mr. Lovegood at the wedding, did you?”

“Why would I?” he said with supreme distaste.

“Hold on.” She tugged the door open and called, “Harry! Ron!” Harry nearly dropped the pan of eggs that he was shoveling onto Ron’s plate. “Come here,” she said. “Quickly.”

Ron stood up from the table, looking a bit alarmed at her urgency, too much so even to appear uncomfortable. He and Harry both joined her at Draco’s bedside, and she shoved the book under their noses. “Have either of you seen this mark before?”

“I—I don’t think so,” Ron said, though he was frowning.

Harry stared at the page for a little while longer. “Wait a moment,” he said slowly. “Isn’t it the same symbol Luna’s dad was wearing round his neck?”

“Well, that’s what I thought too!”

“Then it’s Grindelwald’s mark.”

Ron, Hermione, and Draco all stared at him. “ _Grindelwald?_ ” Hermione said.

Harry related the strange story: Viktor fuming over the mark at the wedding, claiming that Gellert Grindelwald had left this mark carved into a wall at Durmstrang.

“I’ve never heard that Grindelwald had a mark,” Hermione said, brow furrowed, sitting on the edge of Draco’s bed. “There’s no mention of it in anything I’ve ever read about him.”

“Me, neither,” Draco said. “We …” He averted his eyes. “At home, we have a small collection of Grindelwald’s old belongings. Old leaflets, early writings, that sort of thing. That doesn’t show up anywhere.”

“And what’s it doing in a book of children’s stories, if it’s a Dark symbol?” Hermione said, tracing the mark curiously with a fingertip.

“Dumbledore left the book to you, didn’t he, Granger?” Draco said. “He probably drew it there for you to find.”

Hermione nodded slowly. “Yes … I suppose that makes sense. But why would he want us to know about Grindelwald’s mark? And does it have something to do with the book, or was he just trying to hide the symbol somewhere it wouldn’t be noticed?”

“Hang on,” said Ron slowly. “Krum said that mark’s carved on a wall at Durmstrang. … You don’t think You-Know-Who might have hidden Hufflepuff’s Cup where the mark is? I mean, Grindelwald was You-Know-Who’s forerunner, wasn’t he? Maybe You-Know-Who wanted to show how inspired he was by Grindelwald’s example.”

Hermione bit her lip. “That would be bad news for us. First we’d have to leave the country. Then we’d have to find the school itself, and Durmstrang is very secretive, even more so than Hogwarts and Beauxbatons …” She felt daunted at the concept, but at the same time, there was something reassuring in turning back to the mystery. It was smoothing away the discomfort of Ron’s confession, joining them with their purpose again.

“I don’t know,” Harry muttered. “If Dumbledore already knew about this mark when he left this book for you, if he really thought there was a Horcrux there, then why didn’t he just _tell_ us that?”

Ron shrugged. “Why’d he leave me the Deluminator, and leave you that old Snitch? He hasn’t exactly made it easy on us, has he?”

Harry’s expression darkened. He was looking at the ground, and Hermione knew he was feeling the frustration with Dumbledore that had been plaguing him since the headmaster’s death. Occasionally, Harry would mention in a loaded sort of way that Dumbledore’s family had lived here, too, in Godric’s Hollow, not even a mile from where they were now. Or he would bring up that snippet of Rita Skeeter’s now-posthumous biography, about the supposed dark mysteries of Dumbledore’s family …

Hermione let out a small gasp. She suddenly remembered it, stowed away in her bag: the copy of _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_ that Umbridge had pressed upon her in the Ministry.

“Harry,” she said, pulling out her small beaded bag and fishing the book out from it. “I’ve just remembered. We got this at the Ministry. If you want to read it …”

She trailed off. She hadn’t expected Harry to look quite so stricken at the sudden appearance of Dumbledore’s face, twinkling out at them from the cover.

She hastened to add, “It’s Skeeter, mind you, so a lot of it is probably rubbish. But I know you’ve been thinking about what Muriel said, and maybe this could have some answers. We _do_ need to understand what Dumbledore was thinking, especially if going all the way to Durmstrang is a possibility.” She paused, then added more gently, “You knew him best. He really cared about you, I know he did. Would you want to … to read it, and see if you can tell what he was getting at?”

Harry swallowed hard. Then he gave a curt nod and took the book.

Hermione glanced at Draco. “You don’t know where Durmstrang is, do you?”

“Why should I?”

“We overheard you once, saying that your father wanted you to go there, but your mother preferred Hogwarts.”

Draco mulled this over. “Yeah, well, my father’s definitely visited. He used to be friendly enough with their old headmaster. You know, Karkaroff.”

A short, unpleasant silence. Hermione’s brain extended the sentence automatically: … _before he fled the Dark Lord’s service, and was murdered for it._

Hermione’s eyes slid onto the scrap of parchment that still sat on the bedside table, the address she’d given Draco yesterday. She’d told Harry and Ron over dinner last night that she’d found where his parents were. They’d finished restoring a majority of the rooms in the cottage now, and Hermione imagined Draco bringing his parents back here, the Malfoys in the tent, she and Harry and Ron in the cottage. Divided into Gryffindors and Slytherins as before, everything back in its preordained place.

She glanced at Draco. His lips were thinned, and he was looking at _Beedle_ in Hermione’s lap.

“I don’t know where Durmstrang is,” he said. “But I suppose I could ask.”

* * *

Draco’s whole body ached when he climbed out of bed that afternoon. The pain moved through his body like a ricocheting Bludger, bouncing viciously from shoulder to toe and back. He settled on the window seat with two slips of parchment in his hand: one, in Granger’s handwriting, bore the address in New Cathcove; the other, in Weasley’s, said, _The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is located at Number 7, Hartbridge Way._ He looked down at the information in his hand and tried to understand what, exactly, was happening inside his own head.

Draco prided himself on his introspection. He could usually understand himself and his urges with perfect clarity, and it was other people who acted in foolish or inexplicable ways. Yet when he looked at the address in New Cathcove, the information he’d hoped for since the end of July, he found a tiny, incomprehensible part of himself wishing that Granger hadn’t given it to him.

If he’d been in her shoes, he wouldn’t even have asked Tonks about it. He was an asset, after all, and to give him the means to get what he wanted … it was like holding the door open, letting him walk free, when he could be useful to the Gryffindors in the future.

Draco found himself feeling a kind of pride in exactly _how_ useful he’d been so far, and he didn’t understand that feeling, either. Was it simply that he was naturally driven to complete a mission when he saw one? He’d always been competitive, of course. He loved to solve a mystery, to win. He loved to catch the Snitch: a feeling of conclusion.

No, though. It was more than that. He thought about the locket around Umbridge’s neck and he wanted them to seize it. He thought about the diadem, and he wanted to see it destroyed.

So far, he hadn’t really let himself consider the possibility that the Gryffindors might actually _achieve_ their task. But knowing that two Horcruxes were destroyed, having a third in hand, and knowing the whereabouts of two others … five of six accounted for … the task was no longer such a vague, unreachable idea. It was starting to take shape as something that the four of them could, possibly, complete.

 _The four of them_ … Draco frowned. There it was again. He was thinking as if he were one of them.

But wasn’t he one of them? Hadn’t Granger said it yesterday? _Being the arrogant little snot of the group doesn’t actually exclude you from the group._ He’d given them information over and over again, had helped them plan for months now. At first it had been because his own safety had been at stake, but if safety had been his only motivator, he would have withdrawn from the mission the moment the Fidelius Charm had been cast. He would have refused to go against the Dark Lord’s cause.

He hadn’t done either of those things. In fact, he’d only become more involved since they’d moved into the cottage, training the Gryffindors in their infiltration efforts, plotting for their success. For Merlin’s sake, he’d nearly _died_ for their goal yesterday. And why?

He found himself thinking of the shock of Crabbe’s words in the Ministry. The way he’d stopped dead in Pansy’s bedroom, unable to leave for a moment. The yank in his chest when he’d heard that Goyle was making his father suspicious, that he and Pansy might be shying away from the path that had been laid down for all of them.

Draco supposed it was the feeling he’d tried so hard to bury since he’d accepted Dumbledore’s offer. He couldn’t let his life go. He wanted to be alive again.

And for that to happen, the Gryffindors needed to kill the Dark Lord. This was the only pathway back to his life: the destruction of the Horcruxes. The end of the Dark Order.

 _So let them hunt the Horcruxes themselves,_ insisted a voice in his mind. He knew that his parents would take the same view. They would absolutely forbid him from being involved in the hunt; they would be appalled that he’d gone into Diagon Alley. Even in retrospect, Draco could hardly believe he’d done that, himself. Wasn’t it sheer Gryffindor idiocy to have done it?

But … if he’d stepped back and allowed the Gryffindors to go by themselves, they would have failed. They might even, all three of them, be in Azkaban, or dead. And now, instead, with his help, they were one step closer to destroying the Horcruxes—one step closer to a world where Draco could live.

At the end of last year, Draco had thought about what he’d wanted to tell the other Slytherins: sit down, stay silent, let the events of the world play out without you. That’s how you survive. But if he’d done that with the Gryffindors, his only chance at regaining his old life would have disappeared.

It was a strange feeling, knowing that his involvement had been pivotal to their success so far. Stranger still was the fact that it didn’t make him feel guilty. Rather, he felt as if he were prying his life back out of the Dark Lord’s hands, bit by bit. Last year, the Dark Lord had tortured him and disgraced his mother and consigned his father to waste away in Azkaban after all their devotion, all their faithful service. The Dark Lord had been willing to throw Draco’s life away just to humiliate his parents.

In essence, the Dark Lord had thought he didn’t matter—and Draco had taken that belief into himself, that nothing he could ever do would stand up against the might of the Dark Order.

But he’d resisted the Dark Lord for nearly four months, now. Four months, and they had one Horcrux in hand, a piece of the Dark Lord’s precious soul, and their sights on another. By that math, it could all be over in another year. If his parents stopped him from helping with the mission, on the other hand, who knew how long it might take…?

What if he merely _waited_ to contact them? Or sent an owl? They were safe in New Cathcove, weren’t they? What if he waited… even just until they had retrieved the locket?

But as the idea formed, disgust surged through him. Draco came back into himself as if he’d been pinched awake from a dream. He didn’t know where all this was coming from. Granger, probably, and the way she’d started talking to him lately, like he was an irreplaceable part of this. Was he really considering not going to his parents? No. They would have done anything to keep him safe, and he would do the same for them. He would bring them here, within the bounds of the Fidelius Charm, and if that meant having to pull back from the Horcrux quest, so be it.

Draco gripped the pieces of parchment tightly and stood.

It didn’t matter that he’d helped the Gryffindors this far. His parents didn’t need to know that, and the Gryffindors would just have to manage without him from here on. He could ask his father about Durmstrang’s whereabouts, pretending some kind of unrelated curiosity, and that would be it, the last bit of help he gave them.

When Draco knew nothing else, even—apparently—his own feelings, he knew this much. He was a Malfoy first. The rest of the world came second.

He turned on his heel and Disapparated.

The pressurised darkness of Apparition clamped down on his shoulder, sending pain spiraling through him with twice as much force. It wasn’t exactly a gentle way to travel. When he reappeared in a small, dark living room, he was gasping, his vision swimming slightly.

The Breakwater, the Tonks’s beach house in New Cathcove, was perched on the coast. Draco could look out the back window and see tongues of gray water lapping at the colorless sand.

But something was amiss, he realised, as he clutched to his bandaged shoulder. The glass coffee table was filmed with dust. There was no sign of a struggle, but the place felt empty and lonely.

“Mother?” Draco called. “Father?”

His steps unsteady, he moved toward a narrow hallway and pressed the Muggle light switch. A glass bulb ignited down the hallway, revealing two open doors. Draco glanced into two bedrooms: one with a bed large enough for a couple, another with a twin. This must have been where Tonks had slept during her family’s vacations. Draco felt a twinge of disdain. Some holiday, this shack of a place.

Yet in the photograph of a teenaged Tonks and her parents—Tonks sporting a mohawk of brilliant green—all three looked thrilled, sunburned but waving out at Draco as if they’d just had the day of their lives. It was unusual to Draco, the mixture of Muggle house and Wizarding photos, the collision of the two worlds, but it also felt oddly mundane.

Draco retreated down the hall, and as he entered the kitchen, he saw it: a sheet of parchment on the tiled counter.

He snatched it up. The writing upon it wasn’t either of his parents’ handwriting, but of course, there were spells to disguise such things, and they would have wanted to avoid that identifying trace, if the Breakwater had been discovered as an Order-connected house. This had to be it—they’d gone to a more secure location, and this would lead him there.

He read:

_N,_

_After three weeks without contact we are abandoning the idea that you will, as you assured us, “Come back to fill us in.” We cannot sit idly by while our son is under constant threat. We plan to return to London and reunite our family ourselves._

_We do appreciate your quick action._

That was it. Nothing on the back. No signature.

Draco just stared at the words for a long moment. Then he let the parchment drift back onto the counter.

They were gone. He’d missed them, and not even by a close margin. They hadn’t been here for over a month.

Draco felt something cold coming through him like a tonic and it was a moment before he identified the emotion. Then the ache in his shoulder redoubled. He glanced around the beach house one last time, heart thumping slowly in his chest, and Disapparated again.

The pain was even worse this time. By the time he reappeared in the tent’s guest room, he was hunched over, his hand fastened to his shoulder. He thought the wound might have come open again beneath the bandages. He felt something wet and hot in the injury.

When he straightened up and opened his eyes, Granger was there, standing before the window seat with a flask of bright yellow potion in her hand. “I heard you Disapparate,” she said, standing and holding up the flask of potion. “And I’d just finished the Numbing … the …”

She hesitated, glancing into the corners of the room, clearly expecting Draco’s parents to appear there. As the seconds wore on, and as she studied Draco’s expression, realisation showed on her face.

“They’re not there,” she said, her voice small and tentative.

“Brilliant deduction, Granger,” Draco muttered. He climbed into bed, trying not to think about the dark waves of pain that were thudding down onto his shoulder. “I suppose you’re happy, are you?”

“Happy?” She frowned. “Why would I be?”

“Because you don’t have to—” His voice was rising. “Because now I—” He let out a disgusted sound and looked away.

A brief pause. Then she said, “I’m sure they’re safe. If they’d been caught, it would have been on the Wireless.”

“Yeah? You’re sure, are you? Well, thank God for that.”

“There’s no need to be nasty,” she said testily. “I gave you that address and there’s no reason I should be _pleased_ that they weren’t there.”

“Of course there is,” he snapped, “because they wouldn’t have let me keep doing this.”

Granger didn’t say anything for a moment. When he looked up at her, her face had reddened.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Draco demanded. “You’re glad they’re gone, because it means I still have to be on your side!”

“People can feel more than one thing at once,” she snapped back. “I can be sorry that you don’t know where they are and also—and also—”

“Also what?”

“Relieved that you’re not going to turn back into that person they make you!”

Draco stared at her. It took a moment for him to find words. “What’s that supposed to mean,” he sneered, “ _the person they make me?_ They’re my parents, Granger. I _am_ what they made me.”

“You’re not.” She was holding so tightly to the flask of Numbing Draught that her hands were trembling slightly. “You know you’re not. I think the reason you’re lashing out at me is because part of you wants to keep looking for Horcruxes.”

“Oh, yeah? That’s what you think, is it?”

“Yes! You said it yourself, _they wouldn’t have let me keep doing this._ You didn’t want them to stop you!”

Draco’s heart was beating very hard. He felt a wave of furious resentment toward her and Potter and Weasley for being so steadfast, so unconflicted, and toward Tonks for not finding some way to contact his parents, and even toward his parents for leaving the safehouse.

But mostly, he felt disgusted and ashamed with himself, because Granger was right. He glared at her, her brown eyes flashing, the sunlight carding through the immense tangle of her hair, and he hated her for being right about this. The cold feeling that had flowed through him after he’d read the letter hadn’t been disappointment, or even worry for his parents. It had been relief: relief that he could come back to Headquarters and continue what they’d been doing, that his mother and father needn’t know, that he could continue to hunt the Horcruxes, like a blood traitor.

And maybe he _was_ a traitor. Draco wondered if you could betray something if you had no loyalties. He wondered, in that moment, if he’d ever had loyalties to anything larger than fear and self-regard. Had he ever really believed in the Dark Lord’s cause, or only in his own desire for safety and superiority? For Merlin’s sake, when was the last time he’d even thought about the fact that Granger was Muggle-born? At the beginning of all this, it had been so natural to look at the others and think, _blood traitor … Muggle-raised … Mudblood._ Now, even as that word came into his mind, he felt a hard, uncomfortable lurch, and memories surged up as if in Granger’s defense: her terrified face inches from his in the Ministry supply closet; her gentle suggestion to grow the hedges after he’d seen Nott outside headquarters; her expression of delight when she’d seen her birthday surprise. He held the fact that she was Muggle-born in his mind and realised, with a surreal rush, that the idea felt neutral, practically mundane. Where was the disdain he’d always used to feel? The disgust?

Nothing seemed to make sense. Draco squeezed his eyes shut, and the world was a red pulse, thudding like a hammer against him. The pain was coming hard and hot through his shoulder. “I just want my life back,” he said through gritted teeth. “What, is that a crime?”

There was a long pause. Then she said quietly, “Draco.”

He looked up at her. She was swimming slightly. Her hair was Gryffindor gold where the sun touched it. She looked bewildered.

“ _I_ want my life back, too. That’s why we’re all doing this. I know you think we’re just trying to be—to be stupid noble _Gryffindors,_ and fight for some grand _cause,_ but that’s not …” She swallowed and sat down hard on the window seat. It looked like something was stuck in her throat. She blinked rapidly, her eyes bright. “I mean, the cause _is_ our lives. It’s the seventh year we’re not having. It’s—it’s being in the stands at a Quidditch game, and getting a bit worried about exams, and going home for the holidays. It’s just sitting there in the Great Hall and having a laugh with our friends. … It’s not all about morals. Or, I mean, if it _is_ about morals, it’s because those are the morals that let us have a happy life. And Voldemort doesn’t want me to have that, or any of us. Even you! I mean, you’re a pure-blood! You believe in all those things that he believes in, and he doesn’t even want _you_ to have—”

“I don’t know.”

The words were out of Draco’s mouth before he could think about them.

Granger’s lips were slightly parted. She looked at him in astonishment for a long moment. “What … what did you say?”

Draco’s throat was so tight that he could barely speak. He looked away from Granger. “I don’t know,” he muttered again. “What I think about … about those things.”

“Oh.” Her voice was very small. “Well, that’s. Good.”

He could feel her eyes fixed on the side of his face. He said, “Yeah,” not really knowing what he was saying _yeah_ to.

“Your shoulder must really hurt,” she said, standing suddenly.

He seized on the topic with a kind of desperation. “Yeah. It does.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I’ve just been sitting here _holding_ this!” She let out a shaky laugh. “It’s a weaker version of the Numbing Solution we made last year with Slughorn. In February, I think. I don’t know if you remember. Anyway, I’ve diluted it with another half-scoop of beetle eyes, so you should at least be able to feel the injury enough to know if it’s started hurting more intensely, which could be a bad sign…”

She kept babbling, taking her wand from her pocket and conjuring loops of bandages upon the bed, then daubing the Numbing Solution onto a patch of the white cloth. Draco watched her doing it with a kind of detachment, only half-listening, knowing she was still thinking about what he’d said, too, turning the words over and over in her head the way he was turning them over in his. It felt absolutely mental that he’d admitted his uncertainty aloud.

At the same time, he knew it was between them only. He hadn’t told Potter and Weasley about the diadem, and he knew Granger hadn’t told them what the Dark Lord had done to him, or what Crabbe had said in the Ministry. He didn’t know _how_ he knew she’d kept quiet—he just did. And this, too, she would keep to herself. He watched her preparing the bandages, still monologuing about the components of the Numbing Solution, and this bossy, overbearing girl seemed nothing more than a cover, for a moment, for the girl who asked him questions that probed all the way into what he was, and never used the answers to injure him.

She corked the flask. “Old bandages off, please,” she said.

Draco slipped his robes off his shoulders, watching her as he did. She was looking away again, her face turning red. The feeling of flustering her was new. It made him feel a pleasurable kind of relaxation, as if to compensate for her visible uncertainty.

He took his wand from the bedside table and flicked it. His old bandages loosened, slid away from him, and coiled up on the table, stained with blood. He glanced down at his shoulder, the motion of his head causing him another twinge of pain. The wound had opened, but not severely. A thin, dark fissure and a single bead of blood working its way down his chest.

Granger took a slow breath. She seemed to be steeling herself. Then she leaned forward and smoothed the ointment-dampened bandages over his shoulder. A frizzy lock of her hair brushed against his cheek. Draco took a short, surprised breath and smelled something clean and light, like citrus and pear. The same scent he’d smelled in the Ministry supply closet as he drifted in and out of consciousness. And as her fingers smoothed the bandage into place, the Numbing Ointment took effect, and a fantastic sense of relief washed over his shoulder, muffling the pain to a whisper. His thoughts stopped racing. He took another breath of the light, sweet scent, the smell of her hair.

Then she was pulling back and flicking her wand, and the bandages tightened and wrapped securely into place. “There,” she said. “It should last you the rest of the day. We can change them tomorrow.”

He nodded, and she headed for the door. When her hand was on the knob, he said, “Thanks.”

She glanced back and a light smile pulled at her lips. “Of course,” she said. Then she was gone.

As the door clicked shut behind her, he heard her voice again—the way she’d said, _I want my life back, too,_ with barely concealed yearning. He almost couldn’t believe that the Gryffindors were motivated by self-interest as much as he was. He had only ever really thought about them as Dumbledore’s little heroes, fighting the Dark Lord because they were driven by ideas of chivalry and had no concept of self-preservation.

He thought again of the way she’d put the diadem onto her head in the Room of Hidden Things, and he thought he finally understood. He’d done the same thing, he realised. He’d walked into Diagon Alley, knowing what might happen. They did these things because there was no world for them if they didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's my birthday today!!!! a gift from me to you :D
> 
> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	13. The Wandmaker and the Thief

Draco spent most of the remainder of September in bed. Hermione changed his bandages at first three times a day, then twice, then weaned him off the Numbing Solution. Even when it became clear that he was well enough to change his own bandages, she found herself continuing to come in and do it herself.

She supposed it had something to do with the atmosphere around the cottage and the tent. She’d hoped that Ron would become accustomed to the idea of staying friends, and that as he did so he would regain his warmth and humor, but he seemed to be sinking in on himself instead, growing more and more dejected. One day he would be able to look at her and speak a few stilted sentences. The next, his eyes would be reddened, and he would be quiet throughout their attempted planning sessions. Harry, chronically non-confrontational about these things as he was, proved no help whatsoever. And so Hermione found herself in the topsy-turvy world of dreading meals with her two best friends, but feeling almost eager for the hour or so a day she spent with Draco Malfoy.

Draco could be annoying, as she’d known for the majority of her sentient life at this point. He could be juvenile and overdramatic. But his recovery seemed to confirm that the juvenility and dramatics were mostly done for comedic effect, rather than being actual tenets of his personality. It was a kind of character he put on. Hermione had started combing through the Potters’ library to find texts about Durmstrang and Grindelwald for Draco to read while he was in bed, hoping to find traces of the triangular mark, and though he would sigh and roll his eyes and complain loudly about all that he did for them without so much as a thank-you, he did actually read the books. Whenever she came in, he’d be paging through them, marking them with slips of parchment when he found something of potential use.

“This one says, ‘… the very halls of Durmstrang still bear traces of the infamous Dark wizard who once walked the school,’” he said one day, sounding disgusted. “So, that’s got to be referring to the mark. But they move right on. Don’t actually say anything useful about it.” He chucked _A Modern History of Wizarding Scandinavia_ to the end of the bed.

Hermione sighed, turning through _International Wizarding Schools and Assorted Curricula_ in her usual spot in the window seat. “That’s the problem with a lot of these Wizarding historians of the early 20th century,” she remarked. “They seem to think some details are only there to add flavor to their descriptions, rather than being intrinsically meaningful.”

“Not to mention,” Draco muttered, “they’re all so terrified by the idea of being seen as sympathetic to Dark wizards, they won’t even touch the topic.” He scoffed. “It’s like they think writing about Dark spells is the same thing as getting the bloody Dark Mark.”

Hermione didn’t reply for a moment. She turned her page, though she hadn’t finished reading the previous one. She’d never heard Draco make that kind of offhand reference to Voldemort or the Death Eaters.

“Speaking of which,” she said tentatively, “I’ve been meaning to ask. Erm. That Protean Charm he put on … on the Death Eaters. I know it can’t allow him to trace everyone who’s got the Mark, or summon them forcibly, or Karkaroff wouldn’t have been able to run. But if he were to try to summon you, he couldn’t tell that you’re still alive, could he?”

Draco was still looking down at his book, but she could tell he’d stopped reading. He took a moment to answer, and when he did, it was in a forced-casual tone that didn’t convince her. “It’s not that different from the usual Protean Charm, Granger. When he touches his own Mark, he changes the Mark on whichever of our bodies he’d like. It doesn’t actually matter whether that body’s alive or dead.” He paused, then, more stiffly than ever, added, “We’re just objects to him.”

Hermione hesitated. “But that still means that the Charm would break eventually, when the body decay intrudes upon the Charmed area.”

Draco hesitated. Then he looked up from his book. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s … yeah.”

He looked unsettled, and she could tell he hadn’t thought of that.

“Well, then,” Hermione said, trying to sound businesslike, as if this were any other logistical detail, “We need to figure out a way to break the Charm from this end at a realistic time. Obviously we won’t want to undo it through injury; it would have to be a major wound. But I think there’s got to be some kind of Unraveling Counter-Charm for these things. Did Dumbledore mention what … what sort of burial you were meant to have been given? Did they use Embalming Charms?”

“Our family don’t do that sort of thing. The Lestranges and the Notts, yeah, but that’s so they can have their annual crypt viewings.”

“I’m sorry— _crypt viewings?_ ”

Draco’s lip curled. “Yeah. Theo took me to one in third year. They all queue up and parade through the crypts, and there’s generations of dead Notts lying there on platforms made out of Italian marble. I think the oldest one is from the 15th Century, but he looks like he died about five minutes ago. And they read them each a line from a memorial poem in _Blood Most Ancient, Power Most Profane._ It takes hours. I’ve never been so bored in my life.”

Hermione couldn’t help an astonished laugh. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly,” said Draco, and then they were both laughing, Hermione looking up at the ceiling, Draco snickering down at the pages of his book.

“It costs a fortune, too,” he went on. “Because they’ve got to get the Embalming Charms extended every six months for the whole family, and it’s not exactly a _normal_ branch of charmwork, is it. There’s only a handful of specialists in the whole country. … Not that Theo’s family hires Brits for it. The Egyptians are the best, obviously. Been embalming people perfectly for millennia.”

Hermione had stopped grinning. She was trying to imagine having a family tradition like that. “It’s actually sort of fascinating,” she said. “I mean, I suppose Theo would find cremation to be an insane ritual.” When Draco raised an eyebrow, she said, “A lot of Muggles incinerate their bodies and keep the ashes in an urn.”

“They _what?_ ” Draco said, gawking at her. “They _burn_ —like on a pyre?”

“No, there are special machines for it, actually.”

Draco looked deeply disturbed.

“It’s better than parading through a—a _museum_ of dead people,” Hermione said, feeling slightly defensive.

“Yeah, well, no one’s pretending the Notts aren’t weirdos.”

Hermione smiled and closed her book. “I’ll start looking into Unravelers, in any case. It’s only been a few months, but I think it’s better to break the charm too early than too late and have Voldemort get suspicious.”

Draco flinched. Hermione’s smile faded. “The Taboo can’t get through the Fidelius Charm,” she reminded him. “They can only hang around outside.”

“It’s not …” He gave his head a little shake. “Never mind. Go stick that nose in a book, would you?”

“Yes, you do the same,” she said, standing. “And try to finish that one quickly, please. I’ve just found a set of histories of Wizarding Austria that might have something useful; I know Grindelwald’s campaign was particularly aggressive there.”

“Merlin’s beard,” Draco muttered as she went for the door. “It never ends with you, does it?” But when she glanced back at him, his eyes looked amused.

September wore into October, and the trees outside turned glorious shades of russet and gold. One afternoon, Hermione found herself walking through the cottage to realize that it had transformed from a dismal shell into a quaint, inviting place with spotless floors and brightly repainted walls. The photographs of the laughing, waving Potters no longer seemed such a tragic reminder. James and Lily Potter’s smiling faces belonged in this place, which had become a home again.

The last room they restored was the ruined nursery. They’d talked around what to do with this room since they’d arrived in the cottage. In the end, rather than multiplying the bricks to remake the walls or rebuilding the roof, they installed sheets of glass in every gap and hole, tenting glass ceilings up over the room as if it were a greenhouse. The damage to the cottage’s structure remained, but the sun shone through the sites of impact.

They collapsed the tent and moved into the cottage on the same day that the bandages came off Draco’s shoulder, revealing a seam of scar tissue a centimeter wide. Harry, Ron, and Hermione moved into the two bedrooms of the upper storey, Draco into the guest room on the ground floor.

Headquarters was gold and red, sun and comfort, but the world outside was growing darker and colder. They heard the report on the Wireless a week and a half after their escape from the Ministry.

_“… and lastly, members of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement have discovered treachery from within the Ministry’s own ranks. The suspect, Nymphadora Tonks, formerly of the Auror Office, is believed to have enabled the violent attack on the Ministry that occurred last week. Aurors visited her dwelling yesterday evening, where she and her husband, werewolf Remus Lupin, resisted arrest, resulting in wounds to the Aurors in question. They are now at large and have been named to positions four and five on the Ministry’s Undesirables list. The Auror Office has also issued an alert for the suspect’s mother and father, the latter of whom is a Mudblood in illegal possession of a wand. Both are at large and suspected to be dangerous. All four fugitives should be Stunned or otherwise immobilised on sight.”_

Long after the report had faded from the air, the four of them were silent. It was a chilly night, so they’d lit a fire in the grate, but Hermione couldn’t feel her fingertips. She couldn’t feel much of anything. She had done this, she knew. Her ten seconds of conversation with Tonks had been enough for someone to notice. She kept turning the moment over in her mind. Could she have done anything differently? She’d thought about Disillusioning herself, but at close quarters, in a brightly lit office, around dozens of Aurors trained to spot magical concealments … she’d assumed she would have drawn more attention to herself than by simply walking through under Polyjuice. She had to believe that was true.

“Where do you think they’ve gone?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Harry said, ashen-faced. “But wherever they are, I hope they stay hidden. If they get caught, they’ll be interrogated.”

 _Or killed,_ Hermione thought. When she looked at Draco’s pale, shaken face, she knew he was thinking the same thing: that if Tonks and Lupin died on the run, they had traded their lives for Draco’s and Hermione’s.

“They’ll be all right,” Hermione said, trying to convince herself. “Of course they will. Tonks is an Auror. And Lupin knows so much about Defence. … They’ll be able to stay safe.”

“What about the Taboo, though?” Harry said hoarsely. “Lupin uses Voldemort’s name. He has forever. I remember being surprised by it in the third year.”

“But surely Tonks must know about the Taboo, working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?” Hermione said. “Yaxley is the head of that department now. Aurors were the ones who came to investigate the Scavengers when we broke the Taboo there. They must know.”

“This is why Dumbledore shouldn’t have told any of you about my family,” Draco said hoarsely. Hermione glanced at him. His face had taken on a greenish tinge. “God. What was he thinking? If those two are given Veritaserum, I’m done for.”

“Not necessarily,” Hermione said. “There are ways to dodge around Veritaserum—to give partial truths instead of the full truth. Besides, the Death Eaters wouldn’t know to ask about you and your family. If they asked Tonks who the other members of the Order are, for instance, she wouldn’t have to list your family, because you never actually joined.”

But even as she said it, her eyes turned to Ron. If Lupin or Tonks were interrogated, there would be no such loopholes for the Weasleys. She felt horribly tense. Would he blame her for this? With his family at risk, would he demand to know why she hadn’t thought of something less risky than talking to Tonks?

He didn’t look at her. “My parents should take Ginny out of school,” he murmured. “Hestia and Dedalus are already in hiding. My family and Kingsley are really the only Order members left in the open. Ginny should be with the family so they can go on the run quickly.”

Harry looked weighed down with guilt, and Hermione knew he was thinking about how, if Ron hadn’t come on the Horcrux hunt, he could be at home, with his family, able to say this to them himself.

Hermione took a shaky breath. “But none of this has happened yet. Lupin and Tonks are on the run. You two and your families are both still safe.”

“I wonder if we could find them,” Harry said. “We _know_ Tonks and Lupin. If we could just … just figure out where they’ve gone, and bring them here …”

Hermione latched onto the idea gratefully. “That’s a good idea. It’s definitely worth thinking about. We can add that to our brainstorming sessions.”

“Sure,” Ron said, sounding hollow. “One more thing we don’t know how to find.” He shook his head and got to his feet. He hadn’t looked at her the entire conversation. “I’m going to bed.”

Harry excused himself soon after, probably to talk with Ron. Hermione expected Draco to go, too, but he settled into one of the beaten leather armchairs, which they’d pilfered from the tent’s sitting room for the cottage.

“You don’t think Tonks and Lupin are at the beach house in New Cathcove, do you?” Hermione asked.

“They’d have been caught,” Draco muttered. “That house will have been registered with the Improper Use of Magic Office, so that they could do spells there without setting off Statute of Secrecy warnings. It’ll be under the family name.”

Hermione swallowed hard, the guilt intensifying. Because of the choice she’d made, Ron and Draco both had to worry anew, on top of everything else they already had to worry about. “I’m sorry,” she said in a tiny voice, unable to meet his eyes.

Draco blinked at her. He seemed to have been shaken out of his rumination. He looked a bit puzzled now. “For what?”

“For … for … I could have thought of another way for us to escape the Ministry. I should have figured out another—”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous,” he said with mild disbelief. “We barely made it out as it is. If we’d tried to get out the front way we’d have been caught.”

Hermione tasted blood. She’d chewed her lip too hard.

“Stop it,” Draco said. “I’d have done the same thing, all right?”

She finally met his eyes. “You’re not angry with me?”

He looked incredulous. “Granger, you stopped me from bleeding to death in a Ministry broom cupboard, and you think I’m _angry_ with you?”

She let out a small laugh. “Right. I … well.” Feeling a small pang of relief, she leaned back against the sofa cushions. “Also, you can stop calling me _Granger_ all the time, you know.”

One corner of his mouth twitched. “Oh, can I? I have Your Majesty’s permission?”

“Well, it makes you sound like Snape when he’s threatening to dock points from Gryffindor, is all I’m saying.”

“Maybe that’s why I do it.”

Hermione huffed. “Also, your hair’s gotten ridiculously long. You’ll look like Snape, soon, too.”

Draco drew back at this, clearly wounded. “ _You’re_ giving _me_ advice on my hair?”

She raised one eyebrow. “Yes, Draco, I am, because it wouldn’t take _you_ three hours and two bottles of Sleekeazy’s to get your hair under control. What, have you never cut your own hair before? It would take five minutes.”

He averted his eyes. “Pansy used to do it for me. She liked my hair.”

Hermione’s spirits sank again. She thought of Pansy Parkinson, the girl who had mocked her gleefully at Hogwarts, who had said Hagrid’s voice _just sounded like grunting, a lot of the time,_ in fifth year. But Crabbe had described her as straying from the path of the Death Eaters. Hermione wondered if the Parkinsons had been interrogated—if they would be punished for their unintentional involvement in the quest for the Horcruxes. She wondered if Pansy herself would be punished, to manipulate the other Parkinsons.

“Do you think they’re all right?” she said quietly. “Pansy and her family?”

Draco glanced at her. “What do you care? She was awful to you.”

Hermione hesitated. Another moment of strange, casual admission: if he could recognize that Pansy had been horrible to her, he had to recognize that he himself had been, too. She remembered the day after they’d returned from the Ministry, the way he’d said, his voice tight, _I don’t know what I think about those things._ A halfway admission, but it meant he was thinking twice about the way he’d been raised.

She wondered exactly how much thought he was devoting to it.

 _Don’t invest yourself in this,_ she told herself. His beliefs weren’t her responsibility.

And yet he had seemed so uncertain when he’d said it. He’d looked destabilized, as if he were hunting for an answer and couldn’t grasp it. She knew that at this time last year, he would never have questioned the ideas about blood status he’d inherited, the so-called principles that everyone in his life had enthusiastically espoused for seventeen years.

“Yes,” Hermione said carefully. “She was awful to me. But maybe she’s changed. People aren’t only what they used to be.”

She glanced at Draco. With one look she could tell his guard was up: something in the fine lines around his silvery eyes. She remembered how he had seemed inscrutable to her in the mountains outside Hogsmeade, as if the face he’d worn for six years at Hogwarts had disappeared in patches. That was no longer the case. She knew the boy opposite her, who was in some ways recognizable as the boy from Hogwarts and in others transformed. She could tell when he was at ease or on his guard, when he was joking or uncomfortable, when he was even trying to make her laugh. It occurred to her that he had reappeared.

* * *

With restorations on the cottage complete, they found themselves with an ocean of time to conjure up ideas of where Lupin and Tonks might have fled, as well as, more centrally, a plan to get the locket. Unfortunately, all of their ideas for the Horcrux seemed to come to dead ends before they could even think of particulars. Even if they found out where Umbridge lived, surely she would have ridiculous amounts of security? And hadn’t Draco’s injury taught them the futility of trying to take on multiple trained Aurors?

It also seemed to Hermione that she and Draco were the only ones wholly focused on their hunt at the moment. She just didn’t know what to do about Ron. Sometimes he said nothing at all during planning, just sitting in the corner turning over the Deluminator in his hands, which had become a bit of a compulsive tic with him; the silvery item never seemed to leave his person anymore. Whenever she pointed out that one of his ideas wouldn’t work, he seemed to fold in on himself, as if her attempt to plan logistically were a referendum on her feelings. One day, his apparent resolve not to snap at her finally broke, and he snarled, “Where’s _your_ idea, then? Or are you just going to say everything I do is wrong, now?”

She’d stared at him a moment before saying in a high, shaky voice, “Ron, I just told Harry _his_ idea about tunneling wouldn’t work, either, and neither would Draco’s about a fake raid. And all three of you have told me my ideas won’t work all week, so—”

“Yeah, great,” said Ron, shooting to his feet with a dark, mutinous look on his face. “Thank bloody Merlin we’re getting somewhere, at least. It’d be a real shame if I were doing all this for nothing.”

And he stormed off as her shock turned to outrage. “If _he_ were doing all this?” she repeated, her voice still trembling, but with anger now. “If _he_ —what does he think the rest of us have been doing?”

“Hermione,” Harry muttered, “calm down. Let’s just—”

“I will not calm down,” she snapped. “I’m so sick of walking on eggshells! Why do I have to be calm, if he’s decided he’s going to act like this?”

“Because,” drawled Draco from where he was lying on the sofa, “this place will be a lot more livable with only one exasperating person in it, that’s why.”

Her teeth were still gritted, but his words punctured her anger somewhat. It took her a moment to figure out why.

 _Only one exasperating person,_ he’d said. So Draco thought Ron was behaving badly, too. Draco was siding with her, where Harry was and always had been absolutely dead set on remaining neutral.

But, of course, Harry only seemed to care about playing Switzerland when Ron was being difficult. At Hogwarts, whenever Hermione had made a mistake, like the Firebolt blowup or Scabbers’ supposed death, Harry had had no problem siding with Ron. But had Harry ever sided with Hermione? No; the only break in Harry and Ron’s friendship had been when they were fighting with each other. Even Ginny, who would fume all day about Ron’s traditional streak, was too loyal a sister to suggest that Ron was really out of line during his fights with Hermione. Maybe, in retrospect, this was why she’d felt so alone during the Lavender situation the previous year. She’d been in love with Ron and heartbroken, already a consuming thing, and all around her were people who were part of his life first and hers second.

Hermione couldn’t help but think that it was nice to have another friend. One who would look at a situation and take her side, not caring about annoying Ron.

“Fine,” she said, sitting back down before the sheet of parchment with crossed-out ideas. “Let’s … let’s keep thinking about potential diversions, then.”

But Ron wasn’t the only distracted one. Harry spent long hours just drifting through the house, looking at all the work they’d poured into it, brushing his hands over old furniture in a way that told Hermione all too clearly what he was thinking about. He was reading _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore,_ too—very slowly, as it clearly brought him no pleasure. He seemed to begrudge every bit of information that Rita Skeeter had unearthed that Dumbledore hadn’t relayed to him personally.

Then, halfway through October, Hermione heard a shout from Harry’s bedroom around 11 p.m. They all spilled from their bedrooms and congregated in the living room. By the time Draco joined them, his hair mussed and drifting with static, Harry looked wild-eyed.

“What is it?” Hermione said. “What happened?”

“Was it your scar?” Ron demanded. “Did you see anything? Is my family—”

“It’s not that. Look.” Harry turned _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_ outward and showed them a photograph of a young Dumbledore, wiry and auburn-haired, with his arm around a blond, handsome, mischievous-looking youth. The caption read:

_Albus Dumbledore, shortly after his mother’s death, with his friend Gellert Grindelwald._

Hermione, Ron, and Draco stared at the words.

Draco was the first to find his voice. “ _Grindelwald?_ ”

“His _friend?_ ” Ron said, looking poleaxed.

Harry swallowed hard. “It was the summer after his last year at Hogwarts. The summer his sister died. There’s a letter in here between them. Dumbledore was …” Harry looked disoriented, betrayed. “He and Grindelwald were planning together. When they were our age, he was helping Grindelwald make plans to—to rule Muggles.”

“No way,” Ron breathed, taking the book from Harry’s hand. “You can’t be serious.”

“But that’s not—the thing is—that photograph,” Harry said, clearly struggling for words. “That picture of Grindelwald … _Grindelwald is who Voldemort’s been hunting!_ ”

Ron looked up slowly from the book.

“What?” Hermione whispered. “What do you mean?”

“I told you about the thief that Voldemort saw in Gregorovitch’s memory, didn’t I? Voldemort’s looking for the thief, has been looking for months now, but he doesn’t know who he is yet.” Harry tapped Grindelwald’s face. “It’s _him_. But Grindelwald must have stolen it from Gregorovitch decades and decades ago, for him to have been this young in his memory.”

“What’s ‘ _it,’_ though?” Ron said impatiently, setting the book aside.

“I don’t know, do I?” said Harry.

“Being that he stole it from a wandmaker,” Draco drawled, “you don’t think it could possibly be a _wand_ , Potter?”

“Obviously I’ve thought of that,” Harry said through gritted teeth. “Look, I thought Voldemort was after wandmakers because of what my wand did in summer. I thought he wanted to find out more about the connection between our wands, the twin cores. … But when Voldemort interrogated Gregorovitch, he didn’t ask him anything about connected wands. He just kept asking, _Where is it, where is it_.” He gave his head a hard shake. “But it doesn’t make sense that he’d want _another_ wand, because he wasn’t using his own wand over summer. I saw the one he was holding. He’d taken someone else’s. So, if he’s already _tried_ using a different wand against me, and mine still beat him somehow, why try another? Why would the result be any different?”

Hermione shook her head. She wanted to tell Harry he was being ridiculous, so adamantly claiming that his wand had beaten Voldemort of its own accord, when it had to have been his own magic, used unconsciously. But they’d already squabbled about it enough.

“Maybe there’s some kind of tool that Gregorovitch uses to make wands,” Ron suggested. “Maybe You-Know-Who wants to make his own, because he thinks it’ll be better.”

Hermione opened her mouth, feeling impatient, wanting to say, _What do you mean, better?_

But she hesitated, not wanting to brush off Ron’s idea, in case he snapped again.

And as she hesitated, she began to have second thoughts. Of course, there _had_ been some wizards who boasted that their wands were better than others, weren’t there? She’d read about them in _A History of Magic._ It was all codswallop, obviously—the wand was only as powerful as the wizard—but …

“There’s always the chance,” she said, unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice, “that Voldemort believes in one of those stories about extra-powerful wands.”

Ron and Harry both looked blankly at her.

“Oh, come on, you two,” she huffed. “Professor Binns mentioned them over and ov—”

“What wands?” Ron interrupted.

Hermione opened her mouth to answer, but Draco was already ticking them off on his fingers. “The Wand of Destiny. The Godhammer. The Wand of Ages. The Deathstick.” He raised one eyebrow at their apparent surprise. “Favorite topic among Slytherins,” he added.

“Did you say the _Deathstick?_ ” Ron repeated.

“Yeah,” said Draco. “That’s what Ellerion the Unquiet named his wand. That was the most recent of them. A hundred and fifty years ago or so.”

“The Deathstick,” Harry repeated. “That does sound like something that might interest Voldemort.” He frowned. “I don’t understand how one wand could be better than another.”

Hermione sighed. “They can’t be. It’s all just rumor-mongering. These wizards wanted to seem fearsome and impressive, so they claimed their wands were more powerful than others’.”

Harry considered this for a moment. “But if Voldemort _thinks_ one of them is real, and if he thinks he’s tracked it down … that could make sense, then!” He began to pace the sitting room. “And, hang on a moment. Maybe Grindelwald believed it too. Maybe that’s why he stole this wand from Gregorovitch, because he thought it was more powerful—and now Voldemort’s after Grindelwald to get the wand from him!”

“Good,” Hermione said, lifting her hands. “Fine. Let him chase after it. As long as he’s on some wild goose chase, he isn’t here terrorizing people.”

There was a short pause. Then Ron said, “We _are_ sure it’s a wild goose chase, then? I mean, there’s no chance this wand actually _will_ help You-Know-Who?”

Hermione let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course not. The wand is only as good as the wizard. There’s no evidence whatsoever of any wands in history giving their owners an advantage. I don’t think we should spend time worrying about this, _or_ what Voldemort is doing. Like I say, if he’s off looking for ‘ _the Deathstick,’_ or whatever other mystical wand he _thinks_ is so important, then it gives us free rein to look for the Horcruxes.”

“Hermione,” Harry said impatiently, “I don’t know how you can think this doesn’t mean anything. Dumbledore left you Grindelwald’s sign in that book. He wrote it there himself. Now we find out that Voldemort is chasing after Grindelwald? You really think that’s a coincidence?”

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it again. She nibbled on her lip, sitting down on one of the sofa arms as Harry continued to pace. When he put it that way, it did seem more than coincidental, but Hermione felt as if the picture was still foggy. There was something they weren’t grasping, something they didn’t fully understand.

“Hang on,” Ron said with sudden excitement. “I’ll be right back.” He ran for the stairs, and they watched him go before sinking back into their stew of thoughts.

“Maybe,” Draco said after a moment, “Dumbledore wanted you to get that wand.”

“That’s an idea,” Harry said slowly. “Maybe … maybe the sign means we’re supposed to beat Voldemort to Grindelwald and ask him about the wand before Voldemort can.”

“Yes, but why wouldn’t Dumbledore have just told us that?” Hermione said in exasperation. “He never mentioned anything about any special wand to us before. It must be something to do with the Horcruxes. I don’t think this wand has any—”

Ron’s footsteps thundered back down the stairs behind them. They all turned, and Hermione’s heart plummeted.

Ron was holding up Ravenclaw’s Diadem. “I think it’s time to break this out again,” he said.

“ _No_ ,” Hermione and Draco said at the same time.

“Why not?” Harry said, looking nonplussed. “It helped you with the Fidelius Charm, didn’t it? And it gave us the idea for the Basilisk fangs. I think it’s a good idea, Ron. Go on, put it—”

“You can’t!” Hermione burst out.

A long, uncomfortable silence. Ron lowered the diadem, looking suddenly suspicious.

Harry looked alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

“I …”

Hermione’s eyes strayed to Draco. There was a slight grimace on his face, but he gave his head a small, irritable jerk, as if to say, _Well, I suppose we have to._

Hermione swallowed. “Harry, Ron,” she said quietly, her mouth very dry. “I didn’t stop wearing the diadem because I was afraid it would let Voldemort into the bounds of the Fidelius Charm. I stopped because it … it was sort of … taking me over.”

Harry was staring at her. She could feel Ron’s eyes on her, too, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She gazed down at her slipper-clad feet and went on in hardly more than a whisper. “It was making me sleepwalk to it and wear it at night, when I was vulnerable to it. And it made me think things … awful things about myself, and about …”

“Hermione, why didn’t you say any of this?” said Harry. His voice was thin. He sounded both frightened and bewildered. “Why didn’t you tell us it had started to affect your thoughts, or anything?”

“It convinced me the thoughts were coming from me. Because they—they _were_ coming from me, it was everything I’m—” Her nose was burning. Her eyes were hot. She didn’t want to cry. “It was stupid.”

“But how did you stop it?” said Ron’s voice, quiet and hoarse.

“I didn’t.” She sniffled and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “It was Draco. He realized what was happening and … and saw it possessing me the night before I did the Fidelius Charm. He kept it away from me. We had a sort of system to make sure I couldn’t get to it at night.”

She glanced up at Draco. He looked stiff and uncomfortable, his arms folded.

“He knew?” Ron said.

“What?”

“He knew. Malfoy knew about all this, the whole time, but you couldn’t tell us?”

Hermione looked at Ron, now. The diadem was clutched hard, gleaming, in his hands. There was a kind of panicked defensiveness on his face, and anger, too. She thought she understood. Ron felt guilty that he hadn’t realized what was wrong with her, that she’d been possessed by Voldemort under his nose—and he couldn’t accept that he’d failed to notice it. So it had to have been something she’d done, a choice she’d made.

Draco spoke, taking Hermione by surprise. His voice was quiet and dangerous. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Weasley.”

Ron ignored him. His voice rose, his face growing steadily redder. “I thought we were supposed to be your friends.”

Hermione glanced at Harry, and he, too, looked utterly blindsided, even betrayed. Her clarity dissolved. Panic took over. It was like falling back into the diadem’s clutches for an instant, the visceral fear that she was about to lose her friends forever.

“You are,” she said desperately, looking between them. “Of course you are, Ron, don’t be ridiculous—”

“Don’t tell me I’m being ridiculous. You’re the one who kept this from us for months!”

“That’s only because I was afraid you’d think that I …”

“You didn’t have a problem telling _him,_ ” Ron snapped, pointing at Draco.

“But it wasn’t like that,” Hermione pleaded. “He found me in the middle of the night, he’d already figured it out, it wasn’t a choice that I made.”

Ron let out a hard laugh. “Oh, yes, it was. Maybe not at first, but every single day since then, it was. What if I’d put this thing on and gotten possessed, eh?” He brandished the diadem, which was glittering madly in the light. His voice was rising to a shout. “Or Harry? Would you have cared enough to tell us the truth then?”

He’d meant it to wound, and it did. Hermione took half a step back.

Harry seemed to find his voice. “Ron, that’s out of order.”

Ron didn’t even seem to hear him. There was an ugly, malicious satisfaction on his face that made him look nothing like himself. Spots of reflected light from the diadem were flying over his freckles. “You didn’t even think of us at all, did you?” he yelled with a kind of abandon that told her this had been accumulating for weeks. “Why would _we_ matter? Or have you been working with the Horcrux all along? You’ve been busy keeping secrets with a Death Eater, after all!”

Hermione’s body flooded with heat, and her shock transformed into an incoherent roar of rage. Her vision discolored, her heart pounding. _How could he?_ How could he suggest that not confessing her disgrace meant she was helping Voldemort? When, out of all four of them, _she_ was the one Voldemort’s regime was meant to eliminate? And how dare he imply that Draco was still a Death Eater, not even a month after he’d nearly died to help them? All this, on top of the humiliation that Draco, rather than her best friends of seven years, was the one who’d had the emotional intuition to realize that something was wrong with her. All this built upon itself in an instant, and the roar of rage intensified until she could hardly even see, and she screamed back, “THIS IS WHY, RON!”

Deafening silence fell over the room. The color drained out of Ron’s face until the skin behind his freckles was as white as cloud. His shoulders came forward slightly as if he’d been punched in the chest.

Hermione didn’t know where it had come from. She didn’t know why she’d said it.

Worse, it was true. This sort of anger, destructive and ugly and bitter—it was like being back in third year again, after Scabbers, or fourth year, after the Yule Ball, or sixth, when she’d seen him in that corner with Lavender. The things they did to each other. This was why it wasn’t right.

Ron was breathing rapidly. His eyes were bright. He looked disoriented, like he’d just come out of a trance. He looked around, first at Harry, then Draco. His hand moved uncertainly toward an end table, and he dropped the diadem, which was glinting like someone’s eyes, onto it. Ron swayed slightly as it came out of his grip.

“I can’t do this,” he said hoarsely. “I’m done.”

He turned on his heel, a _crack_ split the air, and he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we all knew it was on the way... ugh, this hurt to write, i don't like doing ron-negative scenes. but the siren song of DH's basic plot elements call to me! i hope it didn't feel like bashing.
> 
> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	14. Haircuts and House Calls

They stayed up for hours that night waiting for him to return. Potter made three cups of tea, and they took seats in the sitting room, each of them trying, and failing, to read a different book.

Around one in the morning, Draco decided it was time to break the silence. “I suppose we should leave, then.”

Potter looked up from _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore._ “What do you mean, leave?”

“I mean he’s the Secret-Keeper, Potter. If he gets caught, he could give this place away.”

“He won’t be caught,” Potter said. “What do you think, Ron’s just going to go into Diagon Alley and say, _Hi, everyone, I’m back_?”

“Where else is he supposed to go?” Draco said coolly. “You can be sure the Burrow’s being watched, and that flat the twins have, too. If he tries to sneak back into one of those places in the middle of the night—”

“He could travel back to Hogwarts,” said Hermione in a small voice from the armchair closest to the fireplace. She’d cried silently for half an hour, but had so obviously been trying to hide it that Draco hadn’t said anything. She seemed to have shrunk to three-fourths her usual size since Weasley left: her shoulders were folded in, her legs tight together as if she’d been put under the Leg-Locker jinx. Even her hair seemed deflated, with the way she’d been anxiously smoothing it down.

“After all,” she said, “he was supposed to have been at the Burrow with Spattergroit this whole time. They never knew he was with us. Maybe now with Tonks and Lupin on the run, he’ll want to be near Ginny.”

“Snape’s there,” said Potter wearily. “If that slimy git gets suspicious that he was never sick and does Legilimency on him, or sneaks him Veritaserum …” Potter shook his head. “Ron’ll find a way to get in touch with his dad. They’ll get him back into the Burrow somehow, and he can just pretend he’s still recovering from his Spattergroit until he’s cooled off. He’ll be fine.”

Draco wanted to tell Potter he was being an optimistic idiot, but he found he couldn’t be bothered. He could still hear Weasley’s voice saying, _You’ve been busy keeping secrets with a Death Eater._ He’d been surprised by the way the words had hit him. Why did he care that Weasley still looked at him and saw a Death Eater? It wasn’t like it was a huge surprise. And when had he ever given a damn about Weasley’s opinion?

He wondered why he cared what _anyone_ thought of him, at this point. Crabbe’s father or Crabbe himself or Weasley or the rest of the Wizarding World. He knew what he was, and that should have been enough.

He was reasonably sure he knew what he was, anyway.

“Draco’s right, though,” said Hermione with a bit more strength. “We should be prepared for the worst case.”

“I’m not leaving,” Potter said. “We’ve worked too hard on this place, Hermione.”

Hermione sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Well … we’ll have to be on the alert all the time. I’ll pack my bag again with the essentials. The Horcrux, the tent, Polyjuice, some books. You two, pack some robes for me to put in, too. I’ll keep the bag on me, and if we hear anyone Apparate in and Ron doesn’t say it’s him, we Disapparate right away to that cave we used in our old escape drills, all right?”

Hermione hurried up the steps while Potter collected the teacups and saucers. But once Hermione’s door had shut upstairs, Potter’s motions slowed. He looked over at Draco.

“Listen. Er. Draco.”

“Yeah?” Draco said.

“Thanks. For what you did for Hermione.”

Draco gave a curt nod.

Potter looked into the hearth, where the fire had burned to embers. “I can’t believe Ron and I didn’t see it. It’s really lucky that you did. I mean, not lucky, but—yeah, thanks.” He hesitated. “And for what it’s worth, I don’t think Ron meant any of that, what he said. I mean, he was holding the Horcrux, and he hasn’t been feeling right for weeks. We know you’re not a Death Eater anymore.”

“Aren’t I?” Draco said stiffly. “I still have the Mark.”

There was a pause.

Then Potter shrugged. “All I’ll say is, if you _are_ still a Death Eater, you’re doing a pretty shit job of things.”

After a moment, Draco let out a short laugh. “Yeah. I suppose I would be.”

* * *

Draco expected Weasley to barge back in within a day, asking for forgiveness, but two days went by, then three, and he didn’t reappear. This seemed to wound Hermione and Potter in a way that neither could articulate. They kept shooting looks at the empty seat at the dinner table, and pained expressions crossed their faces whenever they mentioned him. But it was also true that day-to-day life was smoother without the mood swings that he’d been prone to before his departure.

They kept the Wireless on at all hours, now. If Tonks, Lupin, or Weasley was captured—and Draco was certain any of the three would constitute a major announcement—headquarters would need to be evacuated immediately. Days passed, though, and the only interesting thing the Wireless mentioned was the official willing of Malfoy Manor to the Lestrange family, after a legal battle including several other claimants: minor cousins of Draco’s, all of whom his parents had loaned large sums to on multiple occasions. The idea of those leeches clawing at his family’s legacy made Draco so furious that he had to leave the room and pace the garden for a while, scarf wrapped tightly around him to keep away the increasing chill.

Potter checked the Marauder’s Map every day, but Weasley never showed up there, either. It seemed Potter’s instincts had probably been correct, and Weasley had gone back to his family. Draco would have thought that with some distance, Weasley’s recognition of the Horcruxes’ importance would have brought him back, no matter his feelings of rejection. But if he hadn’t been captured, hadn’t returned to Hogwarts, and hadn’t gone home, what else could he be doing?

“You don’t think he’s trying to hunt down Hufflepuff’s Cup on his own?” said Hermione one night, without any context whatsoever, long after Potter had gone to sleep.

Draco sighed, but he was grateful for the excuse to flip his book shut. His eyes were exhausted. “You’ve got to stop thinking about it.”

“I know.” She bit her lip. “But if I hadn’t shouted at him—”

“He wanted you to shout at him.”

“That’s probably true. … I just don’t understand why he hasn’t come back.” Hermione stretched her legs out on the sofa, looking miserable. “Have you thought any more about where your parents might be?”

Draco set his book on a side table and scrubbed his hands through his hair. “No idea. They said London, and we hardly ever went to London. Bella’s family has a house there, but obviously my parents wouldn’t go near it now. I think they must be trying to contact other Order members. The twins have that shop, and their father works at the Ministry, so …” He sighed. “Anyway, I don’t see how _I_ could get word to them, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters,” Hermione said. “All this worrying about people we have no way to reach, it’s just awful.”

“Yeah. Really makes you consider the merits of the Dark Mark.”

“Ha ha,” said Hermione, giving him a stern look. Draco smirked and sank down in his armchair, letting his eyes close.

“Can I ask you something?” Hermione asked after a moment.

“Depends what you’re asking.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Yes, then.”

“Do your parents have any friends who are Muggle-borns?”

Draco opened his eyes, suddenly feeling much more awake.

It had been nearly a month since he’d admitted to having second thoughts about blood status. Some days he still felt angry with himself, embarrassed that he’d said something like that out loud. He was a Malfoy, for God’s sake. Maybe everyone had blood-traitor thoughts at times, but to go so far as to say it out loud … had it been guilt? The pain in his shoulder, maybe?

But then, sometimes, he felt something else, something altogether more unsettling. Sometimes he found himself _curious_ , in a wary kind of way, about parts of Hermione’s Muggle upbringing. These moments triggered a kind of panicked repulsion, the need to get the curiosity out of his head. He’d feel a wash of shame and self-loathing. His parents would be appalled. His whole family would be appalled.

So he felt wary, now, coming close to the topic, but her question didn’t directly address what he’d said. “No,” he said curtly. “None.”

“Do you think they ever did?”

“Doubtful. They wouldn’t have met any Muggle-borns in Slytherin as kids, anyway.” He paused. “Why?”

“Oh, well, I was just wondering. Do you think, if your parents made friends with a Muggle-born, they might think any differently? Even a little bit?” She hesitated, then added, clearly trying to sound offhand, “I mean, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

Draco’s suspicion, his defensiveness, faded. He could tell from her tone that this had been the actual question she’d wanted to ask; she really was an atrocious liar. And the conversation wasn’t really about blood status, then. They were moving out of dangerous waters.

Moreover, he was surprised to find that the answer to the question was easy.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think so.”

Hermione’s expression brightened. “I do, too.”

He raised one eyebrow. “Did you think I’d say no to that?”

“Well, I don’t know,” she huffed, fluffing the sofa cushion behind her head. “Your mind works in strange ways.”

“I don’t exactly go around blabbing to anyone about—about the things we’ve talked about,” Draco muttered. “Actually, most of it I don’t tell anyone at all.”

She smiled. “It’s the same with me. It’s funny, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

There was a long silence. He looked over at her. Her eyes were closed, and so he watched her for a moment, the low red of the dying fire playing over her features. She looked soft and vulnerable in a way she rarely did, lying curled up like that. A lock of hair had straggled over her cheek, shadowing her eye.

Draco found himself remembering the moment in the Ministry cupboard that he’d awoken to find her face inches from his, her expression frantic, her hands slipping against his skin. At that moment, he’d felt like he’d never seen her before, like that had been the first time he’d really looked at the rich warm color of her brown eyes, the slightly plaintive curves of her brows, the color of her always-bitten lips.

He looked away from her, frowning. His heart was beating a bit too deliberately, like someone knocking at a door to come in.

As October wore on, the three of them spent every day in the cottage library. The days began to wash into each other. They would wake up and spend mornings through lunchtime trying to brainstorm ways to get to Umbridge.

“If we could just contact Kingsley,” Potter said often, “and get him instated as Umbridge’s security detail…” But that idea struck a hard dead end when Kingsley was added to the Undesirables list after an apparent run-in with Death Eaters.

“I wish we could _do_ something for the Order members on the run,” Potter said fiercely.

“How could we?” Draco said. “We haven’t even got our Secret-Keeper anymore. We can’t share the secret.”

An uncomfortable silence as thoughts of Weasley hovered in the air around them.

“He _knows_ that, too,” Potter muttered. “I don’t know what he’s playing at.”

Hermione drew a sharp breath. “Hang on,” she said. “There’s another way. Draco, we still have that piece of paper that Ron wrote the address on for your parents. You’d better give that to me straight away, so I can keep it in my bag and keep it safe.”

The latter part of their days felt, if possible, even more frustrating and unproductive. They pored through every single book that could mention Grindelwald’s mark, their research punctuated only by dinner. Many of the texts were so dry that to read a hundred pages in a day was a great achievement. Draco always went to bed with his head swimming in information about early 20th-century Europe. He felt as if they were moving in endless circles, and that with every day they failed to make a breakthrough, he was failing everyone who was in danger, his parents, and Pansy and Goyle, not to mention all the Order members on the run, who could at any moment be forced to reveal him.

Then, one particularly chilly night, Potter came into the sitting room with the bottle of Firewhisky they’d sipped from on the evening of Hermione’s birthday. “All right, you two,” he said. “No more reading.”

“Excuse me?” said Hermione, looking like he’d just blasphemed in a church.

“You heard me. Here.” And he tossed a glass to her, then Draco. Hermione let out a squeak and caught hers. Draco dropped _Against the Dark Arts: a History of Wizarding Power Struggles_ and caught his, too.

“What’s this?” Draco said, narrowing his eyes.

“We’re taking the night off,” Potter said firmly. “I’m going mental. I know you two are, too. We’ll never find anything if we lose our minds in here. Besides, it’s Halloween. They’re feasting at Hogwarts right now.” He filled his own glass, then flicked his wand. The bottle of Firewhisky poured Draco’s and Hermione’s drinks of its own accord, then set itself upon the mantel with a _clunk._

“Halloween,” said Hermione, with a strange, pensive look. “It is, isn’t it? I’d completely lost track of time.”

There was a pause. Draco knew this was the night that the Dark Lord had found this cottage sixteen years ago. It was no wonder that Potter wanted some distraction.

“Fine,” he said, setting his book aside. “But I’m not going trick-or-treating with you, Potter.”

“Shame,” Potter said. “I was looking forward to seeing your giant pumpkin costume.”

“He could be a ghost,” Hermione suggested. “He wouldn’t even need makeup.”

They tittered. Draco did not dignify either of these comments with a response. He sipped the amber liquid, which was hot and bitter, with a sweetly lingering aftertaste. For several long minutes after Hermione and Potter’s chuckles faded away, none of them spoke. Draco tried to think of some topic of conversation, and realized it had been so long since they’d spoken about anything besides the Horcruxes, or the war, or missing persons, or Dolores bloody Umbridge and her bloody security detail, that nothing at all came to mind.

Soon Draco’s glass was empty. When he held it out, Potter refilled it without a word.

Hermione broke the silence. “It’s not bad, is it?” she said somewhat awkwardly, still nursing her first glass. “Firewhisky, I mean. I always preferred Butterbeer, but this is nice on a cold night.”

“There’s a bottle of Firewhisky hidden in the Slytherin Common Room,” Draco said. “It’s a tradition. You can’t tell anyone below fourth year where it is, and if you finish the Common Room Bottle, you have to be the one to buy the replacement.”

“That’s not bad,” Potter said.

“Sort of fun, really,” Hermione said. “I wish Gryffindor had something like that.”

“Well, we _are_ the superior house.” Feeling satisfied, Draco sank down in his armchair so that his hair rubbed against the leather. Out of stubbornness, he hadn’t cut his hair since Hermione had compared him to Snape, but she was right. It was practically Pansy’s length at this point. He realized his face was tingling with warmth. The Firewhisky was hitting him quickly.

“We did have Fred and George,” said Potter, polishing off his own first glass. “They used to nick food from the Kitchens whenever we won a Quidditch match.”

Draco snorted. “That wasn’t a Gryffindor thing. We did that, too.”

“I miss it so much,” Hermione sighed, tracing the cracks in her leather chair. “Hogwarts.”

“Me too,” said Potter.

“Yeah,” Draco muttered.

“What do you wish you could do again most?” Hermione said, holding out her glass for a refill. “Harry, I suppose it’s Quidditch for you?”

“I don’t know,” said Potter. “I don’t think so, actually. Visit Hagrid, maybe. Or … well.” His voice became low and bashful. “There were those couple months that I had with Ginny.”

“You really miss her, don’t you?” said Hermione softly.

Potter couldn’t seem to form words. He nodded and took another long sip.

“And I—I suppose you miss Pansy, Draco.” Hermione glanced at him. Color had tinged her cheeks, from the drink, probably, a dusky rose shade.

“We broke up halfway through last year,” Draco said.

“Oh. I didn’t realize.”

Draco shrugged. “We weren’t great together. She let me get away with anything.”

Hermione looked amused. “I would have thought you’d like that.”

“You would, would you?” Draco said. The words came out lower than he’d intended, and he was looking at her hairline, for some reason, the way her hair looked very soft right there, the wisps of her curls.

She gave him a hesitant smile, then looked away, back to Potter. Draco felt an unusual wash of heat over the back of his neck. Feeling a bit confused, he looked down at his drink and took another sip. “Yeah, anyway,” he went on, bolstering his voice back into a confident drawl, “she started going out with Theo Nott. They’d be good if they kept it going.” He shook his head. “Theo’s sort of an idiot sometimes, but he’s actually liked her for ages. I don’t even think she realized.”

“I wonder what they’re doing right now,” Harry said.

“What, Pansy and Theo?”

“Well, I mean, everyone. Neville and Seamus and Luna and—and Blaise Zabini, and the Creeveys, and everybody. I don’t know. Bloody—Ernie Macmillan.”

They were all grinning, then. “I know what Ernie Macmillan’s doing,” Draco said. He straightened up in his armchair and puffed out his chest. “ _I’ve already drawn up my N.E.W.T. study schedules, of course,”_ he said in Ernie’s pompous tones.

Potter puffed out his chest, too, blustering, “ _I’m already getting in twelve hours of study on weekends, myself …_ ”

 _“But twelve hours is a bad day,”_ Hermione added. “ _I can—”_ A giggle escaped her. _“—can fit in fourteen if I stop eating.”_

 _“Fourteen and a half, when I stop using the toilet,”_ Potter managed before they all broke into laughter. Potter, who had been standing by the mantel, settled to the ground cross-legged near the fire, smiling.

It was almost easy after that. They’d broken out of the dour, pressurized routine, and soon enough they were talking about all the other students, and then reliving their O.W.L.s, and Hermione was badgering Draco to tell them his scores while Draco scoffed and Potter lay back on the woven rug and laughed. They talked about broom models and vacations and troll hunters. Hermione and Potter recounted the bizarre experience that was Muggle primary school, and Draco allowed himself to listen without reacting; the drink let him do it, helped him glide over thoughts of what it might mean that he was listening to stories of Muggle life without jeering, or even really wanting to.

And soon the talk turned back to Hogwarts, anyway, and what jobs they’d considered after school. To dragon wrangling and experimental Transfiguration. The night darkened, the stars outside seeming to brighten, but maybe that was the Firewhisky, too. They drank glass after glass, until the bottle was low and their voices were tired and scratchy, and Draco felt like his body was unknitting, all the advanced knots of tension of the last few months coming loose, and he kept glancing over at Hermione, for some reason, watching the way her hair caught and spun the light like a hypnotic object of focus.

Then, halfway through telling a story about his First Magic ceremony, Draco realized Potter had fallen asleep right there on the rug.

“Rude,” he said.

Hermione let out a giggle, and a hiccup. “He’s been out for a while. … I was wondering when you’d notice.”

“Think we should move him?” Draco said. The words were sloppy. His tongue no longer seemed on exactly the same track as his mind. Also he felt as if his brain was orbiting his head. This was probably normal.

“Let him rest,” said Hermione, the edges of her words wandering, too. She gave her wand a nondescript wave, and Potter’s glasses slid from his face and folded themselves, and the patch of rug beneath him swelled up into a makeshift mattress. “It’s good he’s gotten to sleep. Especially since it’s the anniversary.”

“He didn’t say anything about it.”

“Welcome to Harry,” Hermione said. “Never mentions anything that bothers him. I was shocked he even brought Ginny up.” She bobbed her shoulders. “Not really a surprise once you get to know him. His aunt and uncle were really horrible. _Really,_ really horrible, I mean, they’d barely feed him for weeks at a go, you know. … Sometimes I think he’s still not used to people caring what he thinks or feels.”

Draco doubted she would have said it without the drink. But now she was looking down at Potter with a soft sympathy, even tenderness. It occurred to Draco that this look bothered him.

“ _Accio,_ ” Draco said lazily. The bottle of Firewhisky sped into his outstretched hand. He poured himself yet another glass.

Hermione extended her glass for him to refill. She wasn’t gazing at Potter anymore. _Good_ , he thought vaguely. He let the tip of the bottle rest on the lip of her glass and lifted its body, aware that the simple action was requiring a bit too much focus, and he might possibly, maybe, be a bit drunk. He filled her glass until it was a sparkling column, then glanced up at her. She was watching him pour. She looked like October in that moment, with the tumble-toss of her brown hair and the glowing flush of her tan skin and a bead of amber liquid sparkling on her lower lip, loosely woven orange jumper, firelight. Draco could tell she was drunk, too. When she blinked, her eyelids glided slowly over her brown eyes as if she were halfway to sleep.

“Do you know what?” she said with a tiny hiccup.

“What?”

“Your hair really _does_ look ridiculous.”

Draco let out a dramatic sigh. “Merlin, _fine._ I’ll let you cut it. You could’ve just asked.”

He expected her to splutter, to say that she hadn’t meant that at all, because obviously she hadn’t, but she leaned her head back on the sofa and laughed. Then her face grew very serious and she said, “Don’t tempt me. I’ll do it.”

Draco smiled idly at her. “Yeah? Do it, then, Granger.”

“Again with the _Granger._ ” She drew her wand. “Fine. Come on. Up.”

“God. What? Are you serious?” Draco got to his feet, swaying as he did. “You’re actually going to—?”

“Yes. You brought it on yourself. You’re welcome.” She pushed him lightly into the hall, her hand pressed against his shoulder blade, gentle but firm.

“You don’t have to _manhandle_ me,” he said.

“Yes, I know, your life is a parade of endless suffering.”

Draco didn’t look back at her, because, he realized, he was grinning so widely and unevenly that his cheeks hurt a little bit. His head was spinning and he felt weightless. “Look,” he said, “not to question your credentials—” _Cerdentals,_ he heard himself saying. Cerdentals. Honestly. “—but have you ever even cut anyone’s hair before?”

“Yes, I have. My cousin’s. When I was nine.”

“And how’d that go?”

“Er,” she said, “it grew back eventually, didn’t it?”

They both tripped over the threshold into the downstairs bathroom, one after the other, and as they stifled their laughter, trying not to wake Potter up, Hermione tapped the lamp with her wandtip, where a soft golden light appeared. The fixtures of the bathroom came into view, still sparkling clean. Everything was glittering off itself, everything reflecting. Draco sat on the edge of the claw-foot tub, which was very uncomfortable, and stretched out his legs. He looked up at her as they both set their half-full glasses of Firewhisky on the toilet seat. She was grinning and shaking her head, clumsily pushing up her sleeves, wand in one hand. “This is stupid,” she told him. “Just really idiotic.”

“I know. You’d better hurry up, before I change my mind.”

She climbed into the tub, but tripped getting in. He turned instinctively to stabilise her, his hand catching her forearm, and even as they broke into a fresh bout of half-suppressed laughter he noticed that her skin was soft and warm under his palm, and that he was surrounded by that scent, citrus and pear. She braced herself against the wall and regained her balance, and with an odd pulse of heat in his palms he let go of her, and she said, “All right, it’s happening. Sit up straight. Say goodbye to the Sleekeazy-advertisement hair.”

“Unbelievable. Bossing me around like,” he said, but he forgot to finish the sentence, straightening on the edge of the tub, still feeling on the verge of laughter.

Then he glanced up into the bathroom mirror and saw their reflections. Hermione, clearly unaware that he was watching, had lifted one of her hands to his hair—but her fingertips had paused hardly an inch from him, hovering indistinctly in the dim light. Her smile was fading, and as it did, so did the feeling of repressed laughter in Draco’s chest. Something like confusion or curiosity had appeared on her face. She looked like she’d only just realized she would have to touch him to do this, and as he waited for her to do it, he realized he was holding his breath.

Slowly, cautiously, she let her fingers sift into his hair. Her hand was warm, and as her fingertips slid over his scalp, lifting and carefully tugging, her wandtip scything away white-blond wisps, Draco felt an unfamiliar rush of shivery heat, then cold, sensory confusion. Minute by minute his hair began to frame his face in the usual way, rising over his high forehead, clipped closely near his ears. Neither of them was speaking, and the silence seemed to be rising in volume somehow. He became attuned to the small motions of her breaths, which, as she leaned closer, he felt on the back of his head. Her hands had begun to move more tentatively, and he knew she was feeling the atmospheric shift, too, as if the very air around them was being gripped in someone’s hands and drawn taut.

Time swam oddly around Draco, and it seemed an eternity had passed, or maybe no time at all, when she lowered her wand in the mirror and pocketed it, finished. His hair looked precisely the way it usually did. Apparently her overactive memory extended to this. But she didn’t say anything. She was looking down at the crown of his head, obviously flustered, her cheeks flushed, like she didn’t understand what she’d just done.

Then, quite suddenly, she looked up into the mirror and saw him watching her. Draco’s mouth went dry. They were both motionless. Hermione’s lips were parted, her face very still, her eyes like autumn.

Then, again, that confused curiosity showed in her expression. He watched her hand rise in the mirror. She laid her palm softly against the back of his neck.

His mouth opened by a millimeter. A breath issued out, audible in the tiny room.

Her hand moved upward, slipping past his ear. Her fingertips grazed the line of his jaw, and the very corner of his mouth, and brushed against his cheekbone, and there her hand rested, against his cheek, which, he realized, was flushed pink. Actually, his entire face had filled with heat. He couldn’t focus on any one thought in particular. The sudden stillness of everything inside him. If he turned away from the mirror to face her. If he rose to his feet and touched her chin, her face. These were things that he could, at this moment, do.

But then Hermione gave her head the tiniest shake, as if coming out of a reverie, and took her hand quickly away. “It’s done,” she said.

She did not speak loudly, but the words still ruptured the silence with a kind of violence. Draco was jarred back into his body. He felt wrong all of a sudden. He realized how much his head was twirling. He rose unsteadily to his feet as she climbed out of the tub, and he had the vague sense of wanting to say something besides “Yeah,” but he couldn’t manage more than the single syllable.

Hermione looked even more flustered than before. She seemed to have forgotten about her glass. She was already opening the bathroom door. “I’m—I should go to bed,” she said, moving back into the dark hall, her face half shadow and half light. There she hesitated, maybe waiting for him to reply, studying him like she didn’t know what he was.

But she did know, Draco thought, vision tilting slowly. She knew everything that had been done to him and everything that he had done to other people. She knew what had the power to hurt or disturb him. She knew how he looked in satisfaction and in pain. She knew his uncertainties. She knew what he was made of.

But then he supposed he knew the same things of her. He knew her loyalty and her impatience and that exasperating righteousness. Her venomous streak and her occasional soft uncertainty. Her fondly irritated sighs. The fears she kept at bay. The crinkled shape between her eyebrows when she laughed.

He knew how her fingertip felt at the corner of his lips. Somehow this seemed to change the rest.

“Goodnight,” she said, and then she was gone.

* * *

Draco woke up the next day with a splitting headache. Hermione had been involved in his dream somehow, he was nearly sure. He could have sworn he’d awoken with her already in his mind.

 _God,_ he thought, what had that been, last night? What the bloody hell had they been _doing?_ In the piercing sunlight it seemed insane, so adolescent, the pair of them snickering and lurching down the hall in the dark, their hands brushing each other. Her fingers in his hair. Her hand tracing his face. The memory mortified him.

He kept thinking about it as he slapped cold water on his cheeks in the bathroom, the same bathroom where not even hours before, he’d been inexplicably unable to stop looking at her. Hermione Granger, all books and opinions and stubborn earnestness, no poise or elegance or subtlety at all. And him, Draco Malfoy, staring at her like she was—like _he_ was actually—

 _It doesn’t matter,_ he told himself, irritated. The natural conclusion was that he’d been drunk to the point of complete uncontrol. That had to be it. He knew she was attracted to him—he’d known it for a month now, hadn’t he?—and he enjoyed the feeling, that was all, the slight power of it. He’d indulged a bit in flustering her. Sort of stupid, yeah, but he’d been drunk. Meaningless.

When he came down the hall into the kitchen, though, he found Hermione standing at the cooker, and when she glanced over her shoulder and met his eyes, Draco felt a lurch in his chest. He felt her palm against his neck. Her finger brushing his ear.

He felt destabilized. He didn’t know where to look.

“Good morning,” she said with a small, tentative smile.

“Morning.” His voice sounded so stiff. Why?

A silent moment, interrupted only by the sizzle of tomato in the frying pan. Even as he looked at her, color rose in her cheeks.

“It—it doesn’t look bad,” she said. Her voice was higher than usual. “Your hair. I was afraid I’d mucked it up and didn’t realize.”

“No,” said Draco. He tried to sound normal. “Yeah, it’s fine.” He realized he’d stopped in the threshold, mid-step. He made himself move to the cabinets, open their yellow-painted doors, and take down plates and cups, clattering around a bit more than was really necessary. “Next time,” he drawled, “it’s your hair on the line.”

Hermione let out a laugh. There was relief in it. “Sure,” she said. “That’ll go well.” She turned the slices of tomato in the pan and brushed her hair back from her face. Her cheeks were still pink, her eyes carefully trained on the fry-up.

Draco realized he’d paused mid-motion again, looking over at her, his hands halfway out of the cabinet, holding saucers. He didn’t know what was happening. Was he _still_ drunk?

“Morning,” said a bleary voice. Draco and Hermione both jumped and turned around. Potter was standing in the threshold to the hall, a hangover personified. His hair seemed to have found several new, previously undiscovered directions to point in. His glasses were askew.

“H-hello,” said Hermione, far too brightly. “How are you feeling, Harry?”

“Like someone hit me with a Beater’s bat.” Potter’s eyes passed over Draco, and then he did a double-take. “Hang on. Did you … is your hair different?”

Between the pulses of his headache, Draco managed to say, “Observant, aren’t you?”

Hermione made a stifled sound.

Potter’s eyes moved from Draco to Hermione. There was an odd look on his face, but after a moment he just said, “All right. Well. I think that night off should last us a while, don’t you?”

Draco and Hermione both heartily agreed.

The night had yielded the intended effect, though. Their mental gears seemed to have restarted. New plans formed for Umbridge: if they could Confund a friend or family member, maybe they could set up a meeting with her in a less secure location. They began to take notes from the Wireless whenever she was mentioned, building out a web of acquaintances.

They were also reading more quickly and with more detail than before. Hermione had borrowed _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore,_ and one afternoon, she noticed, at the bottom of the letter Dumbledore had written to Grindelwald, that the ‘A’ in ‘Albus’ was replaced with the same triangular mark from _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_.

They puzzled over what this might mean. “Well, first of all,” Potter said, “it means the mark definitely _is_ Grindelwald’s. It’s not just a coincidence, or a student rumor of Krum’s, or a Lovegood conspiracy theory, or anything.”

Draco, who had also been reading through _The Life and Lies,_ turned it all over in his mind. It had been disorienting to learn that Albus Dumbledore, of all people, had thought like this. But in a way it was almost reassuring. So, Dumbledore _had_ been a real person, with a real past and real opinions. He hadn’t been as mild and doddering as he’d played at. If he _did_ act like he understood the Death Eaters, and even Draco, it was because he’d once had something in common with all of them.

“I bet he and Dumbledore came up with the mark together,” Draco said. “Grindelwald took _‘For the Greater Good’_ out of this letter, after all. I’d say the mark’s theirs, too.”

“No, that can’t be right,” Hermione said with a frown. “Viktor said he carved it on the wall at Durmstrang when he was a student there. That would have been before the summer they met.”

“Then it must have been something Grindelwald told Dumbledore about,” said Potter, looking strained and irritable, the way he always did when they acknowledged Dumbledore’s checkered past. “I still think it’s like a kind of Dark Mark. He used it to recruit people, and that’s why Dumbledore signed the letter like that. You know, a badge of loyalty to the cause.”

“That still doesn’t explain what Dumbledore meant, leaving it in _Beedle the Bard_ ,” Draco said.

Silence fell in the library. They were sitting on the rug amid a pile of cushions, books strewn all around them. Harry picked up _Wizarding Prisons and Rehabilitation Methods_ , a book of Hermione’s, then lowered it, brow furrowed. They’d read in that book several days ago that Grindelwald was still alive, and being kept in Nurmengard, the prison he’d built for dissenters during his own reign.

“I have an idea,” Potter said.

Draco exchanged a wary look with Hermione. They’d privately discussed the possibility that Potter would suggest this idea and latch onto it, in the way that Potter occasionally became obsessed with very bad ideas.

“Harry,” said Hermione in a rush, “we’re not going to Nurmengard.”

“Yeah,” Draco said. “No way, Potter. Even if we could find where it is—”

“Hang on, what?” Potter blinked owlishly. “I wasn’t going to say anything about Nurmengard.”

“Oh,” Draco and Hermione said at the same time. They exchanged another look. Mild embarrassment, this time.

This trading-looks thing that they were suddenly doing—it was new, since Halloween, and Draco didn’t know what to make of it. He remembered the start of summer, when he’d seen Hermione exchanging these sorts of looks with Weasley and Potter. He’d thought disdainfully about how predictable it seemed, how dull, for someone to be able to guess your thoughts with a single glance. But it didn’t feel like that from the other end. It was like an ongoing silent conversation, a running inside joke.

They hadn’t spoken about Halloween night. Since then, though, Draco had thought he could feel Hermione looking at him whenever he was facing away from her, washing dishes or adjusting the Wireless. He’d turn back toward her and her eyes would be on a book or a sheet of notes, but her cheeks would have that tinge to them, her face a bit too unconcerned. And yesterday night, they’d passed each other in the narrow downstairs hallway, and both of their steps had seemed to catch as they moved around each other, and in the instant he’d glanced down into her face, he’d felt for the hundredth time the ghost of her fingertips upon his cheek. And he’d wondered whether she was remembering it, too. He wondered whether the memory came to her whenever they were close enough to touch, like now, sitting on cushions a foot apart, and whether she remembered it with a disorienting lurch before she went to sleep, and over lunch when they were sitting across from each other.

Did she consider it a mistake? It had hardly lasted five seconds, the touch, and she’d made no reference to it. But if it was a mistake, just a stray instinct induced by Firewhisky, why did she keep _looking_ at him like that?

Had she wanted to keep touching him? Had she, possibly, even been waiting for him to do what he’d drunkenly thought about in the moment—stand up, turn to face her, take her by the wrist—

Quite beside all that, did _he_ want to have done those things?

Draco felt like he was going insane. Maybe they’d just been in this house together for too long. Yes, that could be why he was having these thoughts—thoughts that were inappropriate, actually, because he was a Malfoy; he was his parents’ son; he was the Slytherin ideal. And she was… well, she was…

Distracting. She was distracting.

Draco realized he’d been studying Hermione’s face for long seconds. He didn’t know how long. He looked away quickly. Potter was looking at them with that blank confusion again.

Hermione cleared her throat. There was that blush. “Well,” she said, “what was your idea, then?”

Potter gave his head a shake and looked down at the spread of books. “I want to talk to Bathilda Bagshot,” he said.

“That old witch who told Skeeter all this?” Draco said, flicking a page of _The Life and Lies_ with distaste. “You’ve already got it all in here. Why bother?”

“She might know more about Grindelwald than made it into the pages of the book,” Harry insisted. “He was her nephew, wasn’t he? And both instances of Grindelwald being involved with the symbol are from when he was school-aged.”

“I don’t know.” Hermione bit her lip. “Visiting someone so connected to Dumbledore, with Death Eaters patrolling Godric’s Hollow day and night, just waiting for us to step out of line? It’s …” She gave Potter an apologetic look. “It’s the same feeling I have about visiting your parents’ graves, Harry. It seems so risky—and didn’t Muriel say Bathilda was already half out of her mind?”

Potter grimaced, but didn’t reply.

Draco, however, looked down at _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore,_ and an idea struck him. “Skeeter,” he murmured.

“What?” said Hermione.

“Rita Skeeter. In fourth year, she all but told me and my friends that she uses Veritaserum on people to get them to talk. That’s what she must have done to Bagshot to get information out of her; the woman’s got to be a hundred and forty. If we could get to Skeeter, then we can find out everything she’s got about Dumbledore and Grindelwald—even the things she didn’t think were worth putting in.” Draco flipped to the back of the book and tapped the page. “Yeah. Here.”

He turned the book toward the others so they could read:

_Tip-offs, fan mail, gifts, complaints, protests, lawsuits, and death threats can be owled to my assistant at this address:_

_Titania Smethwyck  
Receiver’s Box 320C  
Office of Magical Postal Receipts  
Number 48, Pinpitt Lane  
London_

Hermione and Potter were both looking tense with excitement. “Draco,” Hermione said. “This is an idea. All we have to do is go to this address—”

“And wait for the assistant to come check the box,” Potter broke in. “Then we follow the assistant to her house. Skeeter’s home address is sure to be there somewhere. And if not, you can use Legilimency, Hermione.”

Hermione winced. “I’d rather not, but … but yes, in a pinch, I think I could.”

“Let’s do it tomorrow,” said Potter.

“ _Tomorrow?_ ” Draco said.

“Yeah, why wait? This isn’t like Diagon Alley. It’ll be simple. Here’s what we’ll do. …”

* * *

Early the next morning, they Apparated a block away from Number 48, Pinpitt Lane, all three huddled under the Invisibility Cloak, Disillusioned to solve the issue of their visible feet.

Hermione was in front of the two boys, and they were moving so closely together that her hair was brushing Draco’s chin. He wasn’t thinking about Halloween. He wasn’t. Or the way her hip kept touching him as they moved. Her shoulder brushing his upper arm. The six or seven inches’ difference in their height.

He was so distracted when they reached Number 48 that Hermione had to whisper, “Stop,” pointing toward the door. From further away, it had looked like a boarded-up frame. Muggles dressed for work were passing by it without seeming to notice it at all. But when they stopped in front of it, the boards disappeared, and an elegant door of black-painted oak appeared, embossed with the golden words, _Office of Magical Postal Receipts._

They stood back and waited for the first employees to enter. Soon enough a witch in crisp violet robes unlocked the door and strode through, occupied with a bundle of letters that seemed an inch from blowing away. Harry stuck his foot out, caught the door just before it closed, and they all navigated themselves in.

They came through a short, dark hallway, and then all three stopped in their tracks. They’d emerged into a huge interior space the size of the Great Hall. The center of the space was occupied by a massive system of funnels, tubes, and boxes. Above and around it, dozens of owls whirled, hooting and screeching at each other, dropping letters and parcels into the funnels, which looked like gramophone speakers, and which expanded to accept oversized parcels with various groans and bangs.

Once they’d recovered from the shock of the sorting contraption, they sidled to the side. “Can you see box 320C?” said Hermione, squinting through the Cloak’s silvery fabric.

“That way,” said Draco, nodding toward the left side of the mass of tubes. Each tube twisted and squiggled and eventually culminated in a box, on which were stamped big black numbers and letters.

They shuffled along the edge of the wall, sank down to the floor, and waited. More employees filed through the front door over the course of the next hour. On an upper level, a clear charmed surface spattered with owl droppings, exhausted-looking sanitation wizards began to cycle around overhead, performing Vanishing Charms, umbrellas held over their heads. On the ground floor, witches and wizards in their violet robes began wheeling carts full of boxes, scrolls, letters, and parcels from place to place. One man was levitating a parcel before him that was some four times the size of his body, calling out importantly, “Out of the way, please! Priority order!”

The place was chaos—and that was before the patrons started coming in, clomping up the mess of wooden steps to get to their boxes, complaining to the workers when their mail was damaged.

“Well,” said Potter, “at least we don’t have to worry about keeping quiet.”

The morning crept by as they waited for Titania Smethwyck. Draco eyed one witch checking 302B: when she opened the box, which on its outside was no larger than a shoebox, he could see an entire room beyond, filled with neat stacks of letters. The witch levitated the letters out stack by stack into a large wooden crate, which a violet-robed wizard then wheeled out for her.

Smethwyck arrived in mid-morning. She was a thin, mousy-haired witch who looked miserable. Her hands were bandaged, and Draco remembered the article that had come out about Hermione in _Witch Weekly_ in their fourth year—how someone had mailed her Undiluted Bubotuber Pus. He supposed Rita Skeeter probably got about a dozen of those a day. He remembered, with an awful squeezing feeling, how he’d laughed with Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle as Hermione had fled the Great Hall in tears.

They stood as Smethwyck levitated the contents of Skeeter’s Receiver’s Box into a carrying crate. It was small enough to fit in her arms, and she headed for the exit, wincing as she shifted her bandaged hands.

Draco, Hermione, and Harry hurried after her. Just before Smethwyck reached the exit corridor, Hermione stuck her wandtip out from beneath the Cloak and whispered, “ _Confundo!”_

Smethwyck slowed to a halt, a dazed look coming over her face. Then she began to walk again, more slowly this time. They followed her out of the Office of Magical Postal Receipts. She wandered into a small, deserted side alley and began to look around, as if she’d lost something.

Hermione, who, under Disillusionment, had plucked a hair from the head of a passerby, drank from a small vial of Polyjuice. A moment later, she had transformed into a small, dark-haired woman. She slipped out from beneath the Cloak.

“Titania!” she exclaimed.

Smethwyck leapt and turned. “Er,” she said, looking at Hermione with alarm.

“It’s me,” Hermione exclaimed. “Penelope Clearwater. You don’t remember? Oh, it’s all right, it was so long ago.” She let out a high, airy laugh, and Draco was impressed, as he had been in the Ministry, by her acting ability—especially when, as herself, she couldn’t lie her way out of a Bertie Bott’s carton.

“I thought I recognized you,” Hermione went on, “and I just _had_ to speak to you. I read that you were Rita Skeeter’s assistant now. That’s fantastic. I’ve just finished reading her latest book!”

Draco slipped the tip of his wand out from beneath the Invisibility Cloak and focused very hard on the idea of Titania welcoming Hermione back to her home to catch up over tea. _Confundo,_ he thought, and the spell rushed invisibly into Titania Smethwyck’s shoulder.

“Penelope,” Titania said, nodding now. “Lovely … lovely to see you. Do you have a moment? We could go to mine for a cup of tea.”

“That sounds lovely,” said Hermione, beaming. Titania took her arm, and with a _crack,_ they were gone.

Not even a minute later, Hermione reappeared before them with a slip of paper clutched in her hands and a set of Titania’s robes under her arm. “Got it,” she whispered, checking the entrance to the alley. “Where are you?”

They ushered her back under the Cloak. She took their arms, and they Disapparated.

They rematerialized on a small country lane. At the top of the lane, perched atop a hill, was a house that had clearly been extended in several garish ways. Most obviously, a large new wing was tacked onto its back end; through its glass walls, Draco could see a swimming pool, and above the swimming pool, a chandelier the size of a small elephant.

His lip curled. Honestly—new money.

Hermione took another flagon of Polyjuice from her beaded bag and slipped a hair from Titania Smethwyck’s head into it. She sipped it with a grimace, and a moment later, she was stepping out onto the country lane, mousy-haired and icy pale, her hands painfully swollen. She conjured bandages onto them, then ducked behind a nearby bush and returned in Titania’s robes, tucking her own clothes back into her beaded bag.

“Ready?” Hermione whispered. “Let’s go.”

Draco and Harry followed Hermione up to the house on the hill. She drew a deep breath and rapped three times on the door, turning her wand over and over in her bandaged hands.

The distant clicking of high heels. Soon there was the sound of many locks clicking, and Rita Skeeter was drawing the door wide, her blonde hair curled in extravagant ringlets, one penciled eyebrow lifted high. “You couldn’t have Flooed me, Titania, dear?” she said, with a wide, false smile. “I’m about to go t—”

Her eyes dropped, too late, to the wand in Hermione’s hands. Hermione had already flicked it, and then Rita Skeeter’s arms were snapping to her sides, her legs flying together in the Full Body-Bind.

Draco and Harry hurried over the threshold as Hermione levitated Rita through the door. They hurried through Skeeter’s bizarrely composited home: the bones were that of a simple, sensible house, but the place had been plastered in too-large, too-bright art and obviously expensive statues that might have belonged in a French garden, but certainly not at the end of a simple pine banister. Soon they came out into the glass wing that Draco had seen from the lane. The swimming pool glittered, steam rising from a smaller, heat-charmed section at its end. Hermione let Rita down on a green velvet chaise at its side.

“Hello, Rita,” Hermione said, conjuring a chair and sitting beside the chaise. “I have a few questions for you.”

She flicked her wand, and Rita’s face was released from the bounds of the jinx. Draco expected her to spit at Hermione, or even to scream, but the reporter’s face was drawing, instead. She looked terrified.

“Please,” she gasped. “Don’t hurt me. Is it the current project? I’ll stop writing it, I swear to Merlin, I … it’s only in the very earliest investigative stages … or if you’d like it to have a new angle, I can write to whatever he’d like. I can write it however you need! You all loved the Dumbledore book, didn’t you?”

Draco saw surprise on Hermione’s face, then comprehension.

“What’s Skeeter talking about?” Potter breathed, so quietly that Draco could barely hear from right beside him.

“She thinks Hermione’s a Death Eater,” Draco whispered back.

Hermione recovered quickly. “Oh, I don’t _intend_ to hurt you,” she said with a good try at smooth menace. “Or even Miss Smethwyck. As long as you tell me exactly what I need to know.”

“Of course,” Rita said, her eyes bulging. “Anything. I haven’t got anything to hide. I’m a Slytherin. A half-blood. I swear.”

“In that case … you use Veritaserum on your interviewees, I understand?” Hermione hesitated, then added, her voice silkier than ever, “It will be less painful, I think, than Legilimency, or … other methods.”

Harry grimaced. “She’s good at that, isn’t she?” he whispered.

“I think she got it from Yaxley at the Ministry,” Draco muttered.

“Yes, it’s in the wine cellar,” Rita gabbled. “Far left, top corner. It’s in a bottle that looks like mulled mead, ’87.”

“Good,” said Hermione. She Disapparated, and in the moment that she was gone, Rita seemed to strain at the Body-Bind, her face stretching, her eyes rolling all around as if looking for help, sweat beading on her brow.

Draco felt an odd sinking feeling, and after a moment, he recognized it as something between pity and disgust. Skeeter was terrified of what might come next. Draco supposed this must have been how he’d looked in the manor those evenings, when they’d welcomed the Dark Lord over the threshold—so ready to do anything to escape pain or death. There was no dignity in fear.

Hermione reappeared with the mead bottle and a glass. “ _Aguamenti,_ ” she said, filling the glass, and transferred a drop of the Veritaserum into it. The water glowed for a split instant, then returned to its usual colour.

“Drink up,” Hermione said, tilting the glass against Skeeter’s lips. Skeeter drank, her eyes fixed on Hermione with both fright and loathing. But as she swallowed the water, all the tension drained from her expression, and her eyes went blank.

“All right, Rita,” Hermione said, sitting back down in the chair she’d conjured. “Let’s start with this. Tell me when and how you interviewed Bathilda Bagshot.”

“Bathilda is old and lonely,” said Skeeter in a flat, emotionless voice. “She lives in Godric’s Hollow alone, and when I visited as a fellow writer, flattering her that I was a fan of her history books, she was delighted to ask me in for tea and biscuits. Without her knowledge I dosed her with Veritaserum over four day-long interview sessions this March. I’d been working on the biography for a year and a half, but naturally my work accelerated in the wake of Dumbledore’s death.”

Draco could see anger flashing in Hermione’s eyes, but she kept her voice level as she said, “Tell me everything Bathilda told you about Gellert Grindelwald.”

If Skeeter found the question strange, or in any way noteworthy, none of those feelings showed on her face. “She was very complimentary about her great-nephew,” she said, voice eerily blank. “Bathilda picked Grindelwald up from an international Apparition site the summer that he was eighteen. She described him as brilliant and surly, with a feeling of being misunderstood after his expulsion from Durmstrang. She said he was handsome, and charming when he wanted to be. Not even a day of Grindelwald’s stay had passed before Bathilda suggested he introduce himself to Albus down the street. She listed Dumbledore’s credentials and academic accomplishments, and Grindelwald seemed sceptical but impressed. Within two more days they were engrossed in each other. The entanglement was almost certainly romantic. I omitted this from the book because I felt it might soften readers to the young Dumbledore’s motives and distract them from his choice to engage in Grindelwald’s ideals.”

Draco felt a moment of fleeting surprise, but Rita went on without pause.

“When Bathilda had conversations with her great-nephew, they were almost exclusively about Dumbledore. She described Grindelwald as more than smitten, closer to obsessed, even possessive of the young Albus. Grindelwald felt that all the great woes of Albus’s life were due to the encroachment of Muggles into the Wizarding World. He fervently expressed to Bathilda that Dumbledore deserved better than a father locked in Azkaban and a dead mother. Bathilda viewed him as misguided, but a protective friend and loved one to Dumbledore.”

“To your knowledge,” Hermione said, “did Grindelwald ever mention or explain a mark that looked like a vertical line enclosed by a circle enclosed by a triangle?”

“No,” said Rita. “I noticed a similar mark in the letter that Dumbledore wrote to Grindelwald. I asked Bathilda if it meant anything. She had no knowledge of it.”

Hermione looked disappointed, but went on. “Did Bathilda know what Grindelwald and Dumbledore discussed in the time they spent together? Did she ever overhear conversations between them?”

“Yes. Bathilda would occasionally pause outside the door of Grindelwald’s room, where he and Dumbledore spent most of their time. She heard partial discussions of traveling across the world to Wizarding outposts in Nairobi and Sydney. She heard discussions of the structure of the ideal Wizarding society, which Grindelwald believed should be an absolutist system, and which Dumbledore suggested should be ruled by multiple leaders. She heard enthusiastic discussions about valuable Wizarding objects and legends, such as Felix Felicis, Invisibility Cloaks, the Philosopher’s Stone, the Deathly Hallows, Hands of Glory, and famous swords and wands.”

At the word _wands,_ Draco felt Potter go rigid beside him.

“The Deathly Hallows?” Hermione said. “What is that?”

Skeeter’s eyes were blank. “A legend of some kind. Bathilda described it as I’ve just described it to you, in a list of conversational topics. I didn’t research it. I omitted these topics from the book because I thought this kind of enthusiasm would endear readers to Dumbledore unnecessarily.”

“Of course you did.” Hermione’s lips pursed. “You said famous wands. Did Bathilda ever discuss any of these wands with Grindelwald?”

“Yes,” said Skeeter. “Bathilda was rosy-eyed about both Dumbledore and her great-nephew. A historian, she was thrilled to find two young men with such an interest in the past. She had several afternoon tea sessions with both Dumbledore and Grindelwald, each of which she relived to me in detail. Wandlore was discussed during the third of them. They asked her about such wands as the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny, and the Godhammer. They asked whether the wands had identifying features or commonalities. They went on to ask about the lives of the wizards who possessed the wands. Bathilda reminded them of the lack of historical fact surrounding these wands.”

Draco glanced at Potter, who was staring ahead, his eyes wide. Draco looked back at Rita’s slack, emotionless face. Surely this wasn’t coincidence? Surely this meant that they’d actually guessed the reason for the Dark Lord’s flight abroad?

“I omitted these discussions from the book,” Rita went on, “because—”

“—you felt they might endear the reader to Dumbledore,” said Hermione, unable to hide the edge from her voice now. “Yes. I get the picture. … Did you ever think about interviewing Grindelwald himself?”

“Yes. He lives in Nurmengard Prison, which is located in international waters and co-managed by the magical governments of several European nations. I wrote to the Finnish government, usually the most lenient of the managing nations, to request visitation permission, but was denied.”

Hermione sat in silence for a moment. Then she said, “Have you ever interacted with the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, Dolores Umbridge?”

“She and the Minister of Magic sent me a complimentary card after the release of my latest book, which I keep on my mantel. I’ve never met nor spoken to her.”

Hermione stood. “Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Skeeter,” she said. She pointed her wand at the reporter’s face. Even in Rita’s stupor, Draco thought he saw a hint of fear in her eyes. But Hermione only said, “ _Obliviate._ ”

Skeeter’s eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she lay unconscious.

“Come on,” Hermione whispered, hurrying toward the entrance of the pool room. “This way.” Draco and Harry moved after her, and when Skeeter was out of sight, they ducked out from beneath the Cloak.

“The wand,” Harry hissed. “The wand, Hermione!”

“Yes, I know!” Hermione whispered, but she didn’t stop walking.

“What are we doing?” Draco said. “Why aren’t we Disapparating?”

They passed through the brand-new kitchen, past the old, shabby pantry, past a massively oversized portrait of Rita’s face, smiling and posing for them, brandishing her Quick-Quotes Quill at the camera.

“Umbridge,” Hermione whispered back. “She mentioned she was a fan when we were at the Ministry, remember? If she’s sent fan mail to Rita, maybe it has a home address for return mail.”

“Good thinking,” said Potter. “There!” He pointed into a room with a hugely oversized hearth and a long table that seemed to be made from solid gold. They hurried to the ten-foot mantel and picked through the many gushing cards and notes proclaiming Rita’s wit, brilliance, and fearless journalistic integrity.

“It’s here,” Draco hissed, spotting Umbridge’s handwriting. He snatched up the card, but his heart sank. “The return address is a Ministry owl box.”

“Damn,” Potter whispered. “Well, it was still a good thought. Do you think we could … Hermione?”

Hermione had stopped several feet away, holding another card.

When she looked up at them, she was beaming. “This is it,” she whispered. “This is where we’ll find her.”

Draco strode over to her side and examined the card in her hand. The parchment was midnight blue. Glittering flakes of snow tumbled down through the background, passing through silver script that read:

_Dear Ms. Rita Skeeter,_

_The Ministry of Magic is pleased to invite you  
as a media correspondent to:_

_THE 1 st ANNUAL MINISTRY OF MAGIC CHRISTMAS GALA  
FOR THE CELEBRATION OF MAGICAL UNITY_

_Formal attire is required for entry._

_We regret that we are unable to accommodate plus-one  
invitations for media correspondents._

_The Christmas Gala will be held at 8 p.m._  
_on the night of December the 23 rd_  
_at Malfoy Manor._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this fic about to turn into a rom-com? MAYBE.
> 
> lmao I’ve been excited to write this arc for weeks now……… sheer indulgence.
> 
> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	15. Lillimont Lake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: this is a new chapter 15! the old one has been deleted, but all of its material has been redistributed between this new version and the next chapter, so if there was a scene or moment you liked, don't worry - it still lives on :)

Malfoy Manor was a 17th-century estate with a single point of entry: the elephantine, wrought-iron front gate. The grounds were sealed by anti-intruder wards, which extended underground and created a closed circuit overhead. Now that the estate had passed to the Lestranges by magical law, Hermione knew that they wouldn’t be able to sneak past the wards—not even Draco.

The front gate was their only option, and in the days after their visit to Rita Skeeter, they spent every waking hour trying to think of a way through it.

The _Daily Prophet_ had printed a long, splashy, very helpful feature about the Christmas Gala—they’d been nicking copies of the paper from a poorly disguised Wizarding home on the other side of Godric’s Hollow. According to the article, the Ministry was contracting nearly two dozen companies for the gala, all pure-blood-owned, of course. Among them was a private security service called the Greengrass Guard. Draco had described Elinor Greengrass to them: strict, ruthless, and rigorous. There would be no hoping for laxness or luck at the front gates.

“But,” Draco said one afternoon, as they sat on the library floor, poring over the diagram he’d recreated of the Manor, “the gates are fifteen feet wide, and there’s the Cloak.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, “but Snape will have told the Death Eaters about the Cloak by now.”

Hermione sighed. “If that’s the case, I’m sure they’ll place a Semi-Permeability Charm on the entrance, so that if you haven’t been given express permission to enter, you’ll be immobilised if you try to get in.”

A brief silence. Hermione’s eyes lingered on Draco. His hand was still resting on the diagram; she saw hints of conflict in his eyes. She tried to imagine how she would have felt if her childhood home had changed into a haven for Death Eaters.

No, though—that wasn’t quite right. The manor had always been used for the Death Eaters’ purposes. He was the one who’d changed.

Hermione wanted to ask him about it, but in front of Harry, she knew Draco would deflect. She could imagine the easy drawl: _Yeah, I really miss the place the Dark Lord promised to murder me. So many happy memories._

Draco looked away from the diagram and leaned back against the sofa, crossing his long legs at the ankles. The neck of his dark green jumper pulled so that the weathered edge of his scar from the Ministry showed. He thumbed a strand of hair away from his forehead.

Hermione forced her eyes away from him.

She’d waited for this to stop happening after Halloween. But it had been ten days now, and she still kept _noticing_ him: at breakfasts, when he tapped one finger thoughtfully on the back of his fork; or during these brainstorming sessions, when he wrote down notes in a quick but fluid hand; or whenever he came within three feet of her, at which point she remembered the feeling of his cheek, flushed and soft under her fingertips, the shape of his cheekbone, the hard angle of his jawline.

She knew he’d caught her at it, too. The noticing.

Sometimes she even thought she saw him noticing her, too.

She looked blankly down at the parchment. Without even blinking, as if an apparition were laid over her vision, she could see Draco’s expression in the mirror on Halloween, both cautious and vulnerable, like in that second she could have done anything and he would have just watched it happen. Even his features, naturally as sharp as edges honed to cut, had seemed to soften in uncertainty.

 _Focus,_ she told herself. “I really think,” she said too loudly, “our only option is disguise and infiltration.”

She pulled out another excerpt from the _Prophet_ and laid it atop their notes. The clipping was a hiring advertisement from the gala’s caterers, Lizzie Spizzworth’s Finest Feasts and Magical Mixologists. It read: “ _Now interviewing service workers for prestigious single event at high pay. Only exceptionally professional and experienced candidates will be considered. Confident use of Culinary Charms, Balancing Enchantments, and Anti-Spilling Spells a must._ ”

“If we’re service staff,” Hermione said, tapping the ad, “we’ll be able to move freely among the guests.”

“If we’re using disguises,” said Draco, “why can’t we just _be_ the guests?”

“Because then we’ll have to deal with the guest list, too, obviously.” She gave him an unimpressed look. “You just don’t want to serve people off those silver platters you grew up taking for granted.”

“Granger,” he said, placing his hand to his heart. “This mention of my wealth and status wounds me deeply.”

She and Harry both snorted, and Draco looked pleased with himself. “It’s not that, anyway,” he went on. “Guests will have more access to Umbridge. They’re looking for traitors even inside the Ministry, so she’s bound to have an Auror guard everywhere. A bathroom or powder room might be the only place they’d leave her alone.”

“What,” Harry said, “service staff can’t use the toilet now?”

“Please, Potter. They won’t use the same bathrooms as the guests. They’ll go to the East Wing.”

Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Hermione’s lips were pressed together in a desperate attempt not to grin.

“Ahh … the East Wing,” said Harry in his poshest voice.

“I do say,” Hermione said. “I’ll take supper on the veranda of the East Wing in future.”

Draco raised one thin, pale eyebrow at them, looking baleful. “Are you done?”

“I mean,” Harry said, “probably not.”

Hermione let out one helpless giggle, composed herself, and cleared her throat. “Anyway—the biggest question is still _how_ we’ll disguise ourselves. Transfiguration’s far too vulnerable to counter-spells, and the Ministry are on the lookout for use of Polyjuice. Maybe some kind of glamour charm? I doubt those would be powerful enough, though.”

Pensive silence settled over them.

After a full minute, Harry groaned, stretching so that Hermione heard his back crack. “We’ll have the sword by then,” he said. “What if we just slash our way through the gate?”

He spoke casually, but Hermione heard the anticipation in his voice. Five more days, and they would journey to Lillimont Lake to make contact with the messenger from the Order—and receive the Sword of Gryffindor.

Hermione knew Harry’s excitement wasn’t just about the sword, either. She knew that he expected Ron to return for this.

Hermione wasn’t so sure. It had been nearly a month since Ron had gone, with no word. As always, she felt an anxious pang to think about him. The fear that something might have happened to him was only worsened by the fact that they couldn’t _do_ anything if it had.

The feeling wasn’t only worry about his safety, either. Whenever she thought about Ron, who might still be in love with her, who had stormed out _because_ he loved her, she thought of herself and Draco at Halloween, and she felt a powerful rush of guilt.

She’d been more flirtatious that night than she’d ever dared to be with anyone. And, drunk as Draco had been, he’d been flirtatious, too. That idle smile when he’d dared her to cut his hair, as Pansy had once done—

_Do it, then, Granger._

Hermione shuffled together some papers, her face warm. It was irrational to feel guilty about Ron. She’d told him she didn’t love him anymore, that it couldn’t work. She was allowed to think other people were good-looking. Besides, nothing had even _happened_ with Draco. Haircut aside, it had been one drunken touch. One!

Well— _two,_ she thought. The moment she’d pressed her palm to his shoulder blade to push him into the hall.

Three. When she’d stumbled into the bathtub and he’d turned, caught her forearm instinctually, a bit roughly, and held on just a moment too long.

The thing was, she knew precisely how much Ron would have loathed the idea of her attraction to Draco Malfoy. And it wasn’t only Ron. When they’d been at the Burrow in July, hadn’t it been a constant, enthusiastic discussion topic whenever the Malfoys were out of sight—how detestable they were, how cowardly and arrogant, how evil? “I don’t know how you let them sleep in your house, Hermione,” Ginny had said with outright disgust. “If it were up to me …”

And she’d shot a look of such intense loathing at Lucius Malfoy that Hermione had felt it secondhand, like the rush of heat on opening an oven door.

But Draco wasn’t his father. He was different, and not in negligible ways, but substantial ones. For the past week and a half, Hermione had felt as if she were arguing with a Greek chorus in her own mind, trying to explain to a host of imaginary people that she knew him, maybe more than anyone in the world did, and that in fact, she _liked_ what she knew. She liked how he was protective of his parents and his friends, sensitive and private about their shared lives. She liked that he actually _was_ —as he’d once claimed—witty, and that when he made his smart remarks, he glanced at her like he wanted to know if he’d amused her. She liked that he was responsive to interpersonal detail in a way that neither Harry nor Ron nor even Ginny had ever been; she had no other friends who cared about the fact that sometimes a silence wasn’t just a silence, sometimes a glance wasn’t just a glance, sometimes people felt a dozen things at once. And that responsiveness did make him a defensive person. But she also liked that she knew how to glide past those defenses.

She liked that he ruminated on the past like it was a bittersweet taste.

She liked that he was doing the right thing.

She looked over at him now. Draco’s eyes had settled again on the diagram he’d drawn. _Malfoy Manor,_ he’d written at the top in extravagant, looping capitals. And he’d doodled a peacock on the hills of the grounds, which looked more like a turkey. God, it was almost sweet.

She looked down at her notes and tried, for the hundredth time that week, to focus.

* * *

They had no breakthroughs about the Christmas Gala in the lead-up to the 15th. What they _did_ have were a lot of circular conversations about this wand that the Dark Lord was chasing. Draco was tiring of it. Meals mostly consisted of Potter trying to convince Hermione that the wand was important, to which Hermione always responded that even if some wand with powerful properties _did_ exist, it clearly hadn’t helped Grindelwald keep power, so why should they worry?

The night that they were due to journey to Lillimont Lake, they stayed up late, waiting for 1:45 a.m. to Disapparate. They were upstairs in Hermione’s room, where Potter was steaming laundry with his wandtip, killing time. Draco was trying to lounge in a rather uncomfortable, creaky chair in the corner, and Hermione was lying on her bed, wearing that orange jumper she’d worn on Halloween and dark Muggle jeans. Draco kept glancing at them, for some reason. The material was so strange, the way it ran and fit along her legs, hugging the curves of her calves.

She and Potter were having yet another debate about the wand. After a while, Draco picked up their translation of _Beedle the Bard_ from the end table and flipped to the triangular mark almost idly.

Then, suddenly, a thought hit him. He stared down at “The Tale of the Three Brothers.”

He didn’t understand why he and Hermione hadn’t thought of it before. He supposed they’d been so focused on Grindelwald’s history, on the idea that this children’s book was simply a convenient place to hide something that looked like a rune, that it had been out of focus in the background.

“Potter,” he said, “have you actually _read_ the story? The one Dumbledore marked?”

Potter broke off mid-argument and frowned at Draco, his wand going still over a pair of half-dry trousers. “Well, no,” he admitted, bumping his glasses up his nose with a knuckle, “but I still—”

“There’s a wand in it. One with more power than others.”

Potter dropped the trousers and his wand. For a moment he just gaped. Then he turned to give Hermione a stunned, disbelieving look. “And you didn’t think to mention that?”

“Harry, it’s a fairy tale,” Hermione said impatiently, sitting up on the bed. “It’s about three brothers meeting Death. The wand in the story is supposedly Death’s own magic wand. It’s not a real—”

But Potter was already crossing her bedroom, grabbing the translation from Draco, and reading it so quickly his eyes blurred. After a moment, he started to read it aloud, indistinctly at first, then more forcefully, with rising excitement. “… so the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner, a wand worthy of a wizard who had conquered Death!”

Potter looked between Draco and Hermione, his mouth slightly open. “This is it,” he breathed. “This is what Voldemort’s looking for. This—” He looked back down at the page and scanned again. “This Elder Wand, a wand that can win any duel. For the leader of the Death Eaters, _a wand that can_ _conquer Death!_ ”

“Harry,” Hermione burst out in exasperation, “Grindelwald _couldn’t_ have had a wand that could win any duel, when he famously lost the duel he had with Dumbledore!”

“But the brother in the story loses the wand,” Draco said, suddenly very invested in the debate. “He gets stupid about it and brags about it in some inn, gets murdered when he’s asleep. Someone could have stolen it from Grindelwald at some point. Probably by the time he dueled Dumbledore, he was back to using a normal wand.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes to slits, the kind of scepticism that could cut. Draco found one corner of his mouth twitching. That expression had become extremely familiar.

“Well,” she said, “I think this is all highly circumstanti—”

“Hermione,” Harry interrupted, “you’re forgetting something.”

“Oh, am I? And what’s that?”

“Voldemort has Ollivander. Ollivander knows more about wands than anyone in Britain, and he was being tortured and interrogated. He would have _told_ Voldemort if this Elder Wand were impossible. Voldemort must have heard about the Elder Wand, and Ollivander backed up the idea, and that’s why he went off to look for it!”

Hermione opened her mouth, but there was a long silence, and very slowly, she closed it again. She looked, for the first time in five days and as many debates, uncertain, even shaken. It was just like her, Draco thought with some amusement, to believe in something extraordinary only when it was substantiated by Britain’s foremost expert. God, she really _could_ be rigid, for someone who’d been introduced to the concept of magic halfway through her life.

Draco glanced back to the translation in Potter’s hands, amusement fading into temptation. It was undeniably alluring. An unbeatable wand … he would have liked to see the look on the Death Eaters’ faces if he could outduel them all at seventeen. He could show Crabbe’s father what he was worth. And … well, if he’d had a wand like that last year, nothing would ever have happened to him.

“Still,” Hermione said finally, “I don’t know if it changes much.”

Potter let out a disbelieving laugh. “How can you say that?”

Hermione had regained her composure. “Look, maybe you _are_ right. Let’s say this mark is the sign of this Elder Wand. I’ll concede that would explain why Dumbledore left it for us: because he wanted to warn us that we might be facing more danger if Voldemort found the wand.” She drew a deep breath. “But Dumbledore didn’t tell us to go after it. What he _did_ tell us, very explicitly, was to track down and destroy the Horcruxes. Besides, Voldemort could defeat nearly anyone in a duel already; will this wand really make him so much more powerful? _And_ ,” she added, when Potter seemed about to respond, “don’t forget, we’re going to the lake in—” She glanced at the clock. “An hour, and then we’ll have the sword. That’s a massive step.”

Potter hesitated.

“Come on, Harry,” Hermione pleaded. “Think of the locket. We’re doing really well. We can’t stop now.”

After a long moment, Draco said, “She’s right, Potter.”

Potter glanced at Draco with surprise. “I would have thought you’d want the wand.”

“Of course I would. But I also don’t fancy bumping into the Dark Lord on his quest. Besides, say we somehow find Nurmengard, break in, and get Grindelwald to tell us who stole the wand from him. Even after that, it’s been decades. The wand could’ve changed hands a dozen times.”

“Exactly,” Hermione said, giving Draco a grateful look. “I’m not saying it’s completely unimportant. Look: if we find and destroy all the Horcruxes, and Voldemort _still_ hasn’t realized it’s Grindelwald he’s chasing, then—fine, let’s try and find this wand before he does. But until then, we really, _really_ need to focus.”

Potter sighed. He looked defeated. “Fine, you two,” he said. “I’m going to make a cup of tea.”

He left the room. Draco listened to his footsteps retreat down the hall, hearing Potter’s words echo oddly. _You two,_ he’d said, looking from Draco to Hermione as if they were a unit. Draco realized he’d sort of enjoyed that.

 _Well, why not?_ he thought with a kind of satisfaction, settling back in the horrible chair. He and Hermione had excellent judgment, working together. They’d outplayed Aurors and Death Eaters to break out of the Ministry of Magic, starting without so much as a wand between them. They’d outplayed the Dark Lord’s soul in the diadem, so that she’d learned the Fidelius Charm and escaped unscathed. Obviously they made an effective team.

Draco glanced over as Hermione lay back on her bed with a sigh. Her hair fanned out around her head, and moonlight fell upon it in strips through the blinds. Something seemed to soften in his chest. They hadn’t been up so late since Halloween.

A light frown settled on Draco’s face. It had been two weeks now, and he was forgetting more and more of that night in a drunken wash. Yet he could still feel the smoothness of her arm, still see the cascades of her hair falling and shifting every which way, still feel the hesitancy of her fingertips, as if it had been five minutes ago.

“Hermione,” he said.

“Mm?” She turned on the bed, onto her side.

He opened his mouth and realized he didn’t actually have anything to say. He’d said her name for no reason, so that she’d look at him. For a moment he just looked back at her lying there, moon-brushed, tugging at the sleeve of that orange jumper, which was a bit lumpy. Her shoulders were rounded, surely from many years’ excessive study, and those Muggle jeans were faded at the thigh. She looked soft to the touch like snow or cotton. Sitting there absolutely sober, broken springs digging into his back, Draco thought about how he could have kissed her on Halloween.

He hadn’t let himself imagine it that night. And in the weeks since, he’d always cut himself off before the idea could fully form, always stopping, always deferring. Now the image washed suddenly, unstoppably over him. He was back there in that bathroom and rising to his feet, half-blind with drink and sensitive as a nerve ending, and she was flushed and tentative, and he was sliding a hand around her waist, into the dip of her lower back, pulling her into him. Kissing her.

“What?” Hermione said, looking slightly self-conscious, a small smile on her lips.

Draco felt a rush of mortified heat and looked away. “Nothing,” he said. His heartbeat felt shallow. He felt dazed, disbelieving.

 _God,_ he thought. _God_ —he was an idiot.

No, the past two weeks hadn’t just been the claustrophobia of headquarters. It seemed obvious now, stupidly obvious, the attention he’d been paying to her words and looks and motions, the way he’d tried and tried not to notice her. And of course he’d _had_ to try, because Hermione Granger was the opposite of everything he was meant to want. Righteous, combative, messy, so earnest it was painful, always trying so hard and so visibly. The consummate Gryffindor. A Muggle-born.

Yet even as this list unrolled in his head, questions were proliferating, unstoppable: would she have tasted like Firewhisky, like sugar? And what would she have done if he’d kissed her? Would she have frozen in shock or responded with heat, as vigorous in this as she was in everything else?

The idea of her responding, of her pressing up into him, made his stomach drop. Draco’s mind went utterly blank.

“Thanks for backing me up,” Hermione said. “Before.”

“What?” Draco looked at the pile of laundry where Potter had been standing, nothing in his head but a blank hum. “Oh. Right. Yeah.”

He tried to think of something to say. Anything. “Have—have you always been like that?” he said, now thinking about her gesticulating at Potter as she made her points, her cheeks slightly flushed, her voice impassioned. This wasn’t helping to distract him at all. Now he was thinking about crossing the room, stopping at the end of her bed and leaning down, watching that brilliant colour rise into her cheeks. Kissing her here. Now, even.

“Have I always been like what?” she said.

“So certain about everything,” he managed to say.

“Oh.” She looked a bit surprised. “Well, I—I’m not certain about everything. You know that.” She glanced at him confidentially, and Draco felt a warm spot like a thumbprint somewhere inside his chest. Yes—he did know. As headstrong and rigid as she was, he knew exactly where she faltered, where she could be vulnerable and uncertain.

“But I’ve always been opinionated, yes,” she went on, smiling again now. “My parents tell everyone about the time I researched the NHS’s dentistry policy when I was eight and delivered a plan for comprehensive reform at dinner.”

“NHS,” he repeated.

“Oh.” Her smile faltered for a split second. “It’s the Muggle National Health Service.”

And again, more powerfully than ever, he felt that strange, traitorous curiosity. Real questions were forming now, not just vague feelings, building on top of each other. He wanted to ask whether this ‘ _NHS’_ was better or worse than St. Mungo’s, which had been understaffed and mismanaged for years. Decades, the way his mother spoke about it. He wanted to ask how “dentistry” was even supposed to work.

At the same time as these thoughts were unspooling, though, he was aware that his posture had grown stiff and awkward, and his father’s voice was intruding into the back of his mind. _Muggles_ , it said disgustedly, distantly, like an echo, and Draco found himself staring hard at the floor, face tense, something turning in his stomach. His parents … what would they have thought about him wanting to kiss Hermione? What would his friends have thought? The rest of his family? … but no, there was no need to wonder. Draco knew exactly what they would have thought. He’d heard everything they’d called his aunt Andromeda. _Filthy Muggle-lover_ , said Bellatrix’s disgusted voice, _thought our father would die of shame—_ and his mother’s cool, casual tones, _A blood traitor like that is no sister of mine._ Draco could hear Pansy’s laugh, disbelieving and appalled, could imagine repulsion on Crabbe and Goyle’s faces, jeering disdain on Blaise and Theo’s. He tried to clear his mind, but it wasn’t working. He didn’t want the curiosity, but he didn’t want these echoes, either; he didn’t want anything; he wanted to be alone; he wanted to get the voices out of his head and think unaffected for two bloody seconds.

His brain felt pressurized. _Think of something else_ , he told himself. Anything else.

He closed his eyes. Her fingertips on his cheek, her face in the mirror, her uncertainty. Everything else seemed to fade, his head going blissfully blank. Everything else was complicated; everything else was fear and judgment. But that night had been simple, private, elemental, the drink taking them outside choice or responsibility. A kind of release.

“I’m going to see where Harry is with that tea,” Hermione said, something odd about her voice. He opened his eyes, but she was already crossing the room. The door was already closing, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

He still hadn’t really processed any of it by the time they Apparated to Lillimont Lake. The air smelled like frost, and the moon was a white sickle. Draco was relieved to be out in the cold, with some distraction.

The lake was small, hardly larger than the cottage’s back garden. “Hello?” Potter called, stepping out onto its pebbled bank. His wand was clutched in his hand, and a white mist formed in front of his mouth as he breathed. It hadn’t been nearly cold enough to see their breath back at headquarters. The Apparition must have taken them to the farthest reaches of Scotland.

Draco stayed behind in the trees with Hermione. Both their wands were drawn, too. They didn’t think it would be a trap, not really, when this messenger had left them the will and the other bequests. Still, it was best to be safe. Draco was under the Invisibility Cloak, but his wand hand peeked through its folds, ready to cast.

Hermione was close to a pine tree, one hand spread across the rough bark. She hadn’t spoken to him since her room. He wondered if something of his thoughts had shown on his face. He wondered with a kind of humiliation if she’d guessed his attraction before he’d even known it himself.

Motion ahead jerked him from his thoughts. His wand whipped up, ready.

But it wasn’t an attack. It wasn’t even a person.

Before them, materializing at the edge of the lake, where the still water had frozen into the pebbles, was a Patronus: a beautiful doe, dazzling silver, reflecting off the icy lake. For the first time in half an hour, thoughts of himself and Hermione dissipated completely. Draco was transfixed by the sight, and so, it seemed, was Potter. It was a long moment before he took a step toward the doe, his wand hand faltering.

The doe stepped away, pausing every so often so Potter could follow, drawing him around the edge of the lake. Draco and Hermione followed, picking through the trees as quietly as they could.

When Potter came up on a small bluff that overlooked a deeper part of the lake, the doe took several steps out onto the water. Potter hesitated, clearly unsure how he was supposed to follow, but the doe didn’t go far. She halted, bowed her head until the tip of her nose brushed the thin, dark ice, remained this way for several long, still moments—and vanished.

Potter stared down into the water at the spot the doe had touched. He lowered his wand hand.

“What’s he doing?” murmured Draco.

Hermione bobbed her shoulders and didn’t turn toward his voice. Draco, looking at the back of her head, felt an odd prickle of worry.

Then Potter called, in a carrying whisper, “The sword! They’ve left it here. I—”

Harry spun suddenly, and Draco and Hermione lifted their wands again. He’d faced a section of trees twenty feet away from them.

“Hello?” Harry said again. “Someone there? Remus? Tonks? … Kingsley? … _Lumos!_ ”

The beam of light fell across the edge of the lake and into the trees, but though Harry squinted, he didn’t seem to see anything. Neither did they hear the _crack_ of Disapparition.

“Look,” Harry said, with the air of throwing caution to the wind, “if you’re in the Order, come out, would you?”

The wind shifted through the trees, a forlorn rasp.

Hermione tensed. A brainwave seemed to have struck her. “Harry,” she whispered, hurrying out from the tree line. Potter gave her a concerned look—this wasn’t part of the plan—but Draco wasn’t worried. If this had been an enemy, they would have attacked right away when they saw Harry alone.

Draco followed Hermione out of the trees, tucking his wand hand back beneath the Cloak, and stopped beside her and Potter on the edge of the bank. Draco looked down into the dark, icy water. There it was, glinting, unmistakable: the ruby-encrusted hilt of the sword of Godric Gryffindor.

“Harry,” Hermione said in a low voice, “maybe this is someone in the Ministry who’s secretly sympathetic to the Order. Maybe that’s how they got hold of Dumbledore’s bequests. And that’s why they’d want to stay hidden—so we can’t give them away if we get caught.”

Potter’s brows drew together. “Could be,” he muttered. After a moment, he raised his voice again, still facing the trees. “Whoever you are, if you can get word to any of the Order of the Phoenix—Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, or anyone else who’s on our side—if you can find a way, tell them to meet us here. On December the 1st, let’s say. That’ll give you some time to spread the message. 11 p.m., all right? And…” Potter finally lowered his wand. “Thank you. For the sword, and … and everything.”

There was a long, silent moment.

Then—from the trees—

_Crack._

Whoever it had been, they were gone.

His face set, Potter turned back to the icy lake.

* * *

The sword lay on the kitchen table, perfect, unmarred by the centuries. Beside it lay the diadem. Harry was leaning against the counter with his hands wrapped around a cup of tea, his hair still damp from the lake water, a blanket draped over his shoulders.

Hermione was facing away from Draco, her head so full of thoughts it was nearly painful. She wished they had a Pensieve.

“Who do you think it was?” Harry said. “Can you think of anyone with a doe Patronus?”

Hermione shook her head, nibbling at her lip. She had run through all the members of the Order, all the members of Dumbledore’s Army … not a doe in the lot.

“Whoever it is,” said Draco, sitting at the kitchen table, “why didn’t you tell them to contact the Weasleys? Or Hagrid or McGonagall? They’re the only ones in the Order who are still out in the open.”

“That’s why I didn’t mention them,” Harry said. “If this person gets caught, we don’t want them to be able to give everyone away.”

“Yeah, but why should they be able to find anyone who’s on the run any better than we could?”

Harry threw up his hands, looking exasperated. “I don’t know, all right? It’s just a chance. We’ve got to take every chance we can.”

In the lull, their attention moved back to the objects on the table. For the first time since the short conversation with Draco in her room, Hermione’s thoughts focused completely. She felt tense excitement filling the room, wall to wall. At last, they had not just a Horcrux, but the means to destroy it.

“Do you reckon he’ll be able to feel it?” Harry said quietly. “When we get rid of it?”

“None of the books on Horcruxes went into that much detail,” Hermione said, “but I don’t think so. It’s been split away from him completely. There’s no more connection between them. That’s what gives the object its power.”

She didn’t want to look at the diadem. Even now, the way it glittered at her was enticing, reminding her of the bliss she had felt to wear it—to abandon who she really was in favor of the cold certainty of Lord Voldemort.

That was the thing people never spoke about: how remorselessness could feel wonderful, an untethered sensation, like the power of flight. It was sometimes so blissful not to care.

“I want it gone,” she said, and she was surprised to hear how hard her voice was. “I don’t want it to be here anymore. I still … I still have dreams about it sometimes.”

Harry looked troubled. “Hermione,” he said, “that’s …”

He broke off. Draco had stood, taken the sword from the table, and extended the ruby-encrusted hilt to her.

There was something insistent about the way he was standing, turned fully toward her, as if he’d noticed she hadn’t spoken to or even looked at him since their conversation, as if he was asking for her to engage.

And as the sword glittered between them, she remembered him at her bedroom door after the diadem had tried to take her over, locking her in every night to keep her safe. She remembered him defending her to Ron, saying, _You don’t know what you’re talking about_ —because Draco did know. He knew exactly what the destruction of the diadem would mean to her.

But she still couldn’t make herself look at him, because lying there in her bedroom, in the horrible spiraling silence after she’d reminded him she was Muggle-born, she’d felt so small and alone.

She curled her sweaty fingers around the shining hilt without a word or a glance up at Draco. Instead, she drew a deep breath and looked to Harry, who gave an encouraging nod.

She stepped up to the table. The kitchen seemed to blur around her. She forced her eyes to fix on the diadem. Was it her imagination, or was the light moving strangely on its surface? Were the sapphires shining more and more brightly as she lifted the sword above her head, as if they could sense the danger? She heard an echo of that cold, sweet voice in the back of her mind, the one who had told her those terrible and yet seductive things—that she was nothing, had always been nothing, but that if she only chose the right path, she could be rebuilt in an image that was worth everything … she was weak, she was flawed, she was undesirable and unworthy, and how laughably foolish that she had begun to _care_ about Malfoy, how pathetic to think her inferiority would simply fade away in his eyes, how presumptuous, she, born of Muggles, of worthless filth—

_No._

The voice that rang through her mind was her own.

No. In a world filled with hatred for what she was, there could be no room for doubt or self-loathing. Again and again, for the rest of her life, it would have to be her voice that declared her worth.

She slammed the sword down upon the diadem and cleaved it in two.

* * *

_Hermione’s feet slipped on porcelain, and a warm, careful hand beneath her forearm held her up. A low voice was laughing, mixing with her own, ringing against the tile. She was in the Prefects’ Bathroom, but it had changed. The massive bath sunk into the floor had been replaced with a claw-foot tub. The light was warm and dim._

_It was sixth year, after hours, and hadn’t she had this dream a hundred times? Hadn’t she spent half of sixth year dreaming of Ron happening into the Prefects’ Bathroom just as she wrapped a towel around herself?_

_Her eyes were closed. The world was a sleepy abstract of black and red. She didn’t know why she was standing in the bathtub. There must have been a reason. She was laughing again, whispering, “Quiet … we have to be quiet, someone’s going to hear us.”_

_His hand slid from her forearm up to her shoulder, where she was still holding the corners of the towel together. His thumb teased at the edge of the cloth. “No one’s going to hear,” he said._

_It wasn’t Ron’s voice._

_Hermione didn’t open her eyes. Her body was humming like an electric wire. “Are you sure?” she murmured as his fingertips brushed across her collarbones, taking her hair slowly behind her shoulders, the motions lazy but deliberate._

_“I’m sure,” Draco said._

_Then the floor fell out from beneath her, and she was falling, plummeting endlessly downward, accelerating toward a surface she knew would shatter her._

She woke up with the echo of his voice in her ear.

Hermione’s face burned as she sat up, breathing hard. Her hands were still aching with sensation, as if they’d just unwound from his robes.

Outside, the sky was still pitch-black. They must only have returned from the lake four or five hours ago, but she felt wide awake. She threw the covers off herself and got out of bed, feeling a mix of panic and frustration and anger.

Standing at her bedroom window, which looked out over the cottage’s back garden, Hermione closed her eyes. The image appeared instantly. Draco’s face in the mirror. That night, mind loose with Firewhisky, she’d looked at his softened, uncertain expression and wondered what he’d been thinking.

In that instant, she’d let herself wonder if she’d changed in his eyes as completely as he’d changed in hers. More than that—she’d hoped for it. In the back of her mind, she supposed she’d been hoping for it ever since.

After last night, she had her answer.

 _It’s the Muggle National Health Service,_ she’d said. Such a mundane sentence, and yet he’d looked as if she’d uttered a disgusting swearword. That hard expression on his face, his silence, had skewered all the way into a soft, vulnerable part of her. God, the way he’d closed his eyes, as if he couldn’t even look at her anymore.

Hermione slipped into the bathroom and hunched over the sink, staring at herself in the mirror. She didn’t know how she could have let this happen. Hadn’t she told herself for months not to invest anything in his thoughts and values? He was a Malfoy. She was herself, a Muggle-born, and she could never be anything different.

She’d known all along that there were certain rules she had to follow with Draco. Yes, they had saved each other’s necks multiple times now, but she knew his upbringing. She knew what he’d believed unquestioningly for seventeen years. If it was possible to trust someone with your life, but not your happiness, that was the way she trusted him.

It had been safe to develop a rapport, to be amused by him, to understand him. It had even been safe to appreciate the type of friendship they’d developed, which had been based on mutual confession, on slowly developing comprehension. But the unsafe thing was to let herself care, _really_ care, about his opinion of her. That was the line, and on Halloween, she’d stepped, staggered, lurched over it.

She wondered if she was some kind of emotional masochist. After all, she’d been most interested in Ron when Ron was interested in someone else. And Draco … he’d claimed to think they were friends, but she knew they didn’t have the same concept of friendship. At Hogwarts, he’d been ‘ _friends’_ with Blaise Zabini, but from the way Draco spoke about Zabini, he clearly thought of the friendship as nothing more than convenient association.

That was what this was, too. Convenient association. Forced association, really, since he had nowhere else to go—no one else who even knew he was alive. Maybe Draco found her an entertaining diversion, but in all likelihood he had nothing invested in her. He’d already made it clear that he thought her attraction was funny.

Maybe he thought it was a bit pathetic, too. Maybe he was embarrassed to think about it, and that was why, after two weeks, he hadn’t mentioned what had happened on Halloween.

Or maybe he was disgusted by it. She remembered him staring at the floor last night as if he’d had a toothache. Maybe, despite their supposed friendship, he still thought of her as … as a …

Hermione’s throat grew tight, and her eyes prickled.

The feeling of panic grew, and it shrank her as it went, until she felt tiny. She squeezed the edges of the sink until discomfort shot up her fingers, until she couldn’t feel what she’d felt in the dream anymore.

She gritted her teeth and whispered, “No.”

She felt the diadem splitting under her hands. She heard the high-pitched, distant, vengeful scream of Lord Voldemort.

She looked at her own furious expression in the mirror. She was finished with feeling scorned and lonely and inadequate. After last year, never again, never for any reason.

She wasn’t going to give Draco the ability to hurt her. No more dreams. No more _noticing_. No more speaking to him unless she had to, until she got this stupid, naïve preoccupation under control. As if it even mattered when compared to the Horcruxes, and the war.

No more.

* * *

On the first day, Draco tried to convince himself he was imagining it.

He told himself Hermione had slept poorly. They’d returned home from Lillimont Lake at 2:30, after all, and she’d destroyed a Horcrux. He told himself she’d tossed and turned, and that was why she looked sleepless, and that was why she wasn’t really speaking to or looking at him. She wasn’t speaking to Potter much, either; that was a good sign. Surely it was just distraction.

He asked her after dinner, “Something up, Granger?”

“Mm,” she said noncommittally, turning a page in _So You Want to Be Someone Else: Largely Legal Methods of Wizarding Identity Reformation._ But he saw that her gaze was fixed on the top left corner of the page, unmoving. He knew that when she was really too distracted by reading to speak, her eyes whipped back and forth across a page like a speed-painter’s brush.

Potter had lowered his own book. “Is it the Horcrux?” he asked.

“No,” Hermione said, definitely a bit curt now.

Potter hesitated, but went back to his book.

Potter wasn’t the most observant person, Draco thought, but he did _try_. That was something he had in common with Goyle, although he never would have said that to Potter at risk of being hexed.

Draco tried to refocus on _Cleaning Jinxes: Befuddle Your Friends and De-foul Your Household!_ But halfway through a description of a jinx that would transfer dust onto a friend’s face, he realized he was rereading the same six words over and over, and also that he was waiting for Potter to get up and go to bed. Potter almost always turned in before Draco and Hermione—probably to watch Ginny Weasley’s dot on the Marauder’s Map, which he’d drunkenly mentioned doing at Halloween and, blessedly, seemed not to remember confessing.

Once Potter was in bed, Draco could ask Hermione again what was going on with her, and maybe she’d give a real answer. He knew there were _some_ things she’d told him that she’d never told Potter, a fact that gave him a kind of satisfaction.

He’d hardly gotten through two more pages of _Cleaning Jinxes,_ though, before Hermione stood up. “I’m going to bed,” she said, already climbing the steps. Both Draco and Harry watched her go.

“You reckon she’s all right?” Potter asked, when they’d heard her bedroom door close upstairs.

“Why are you asking me?” Draco said. “You’ve been her best friend for seven years, haven’t you?”

Potter shrugged, but he was looking at Draco a bit too shrewdly for Draco’s taste.

“She’s probably just tired,” Draco muttered, going back to his book, suddenly in a bad mood.

After the next day, he knew it wasn’t a figment of his imagination. Hermione looked alert and well-rested. She treated Potter with perfect normalcy. She was focused, and put-together, and she brought long, detailed pages of notes to the library for their brainstorming for the Christmas Gala.

What she didn’t do, ever, was look at him. And when she spoke to him, it was with the kind of shuttered coldness that he associated with Severus Snape.

Soon she began to distance herself from him outright. When he cooked, she would no longer set the table and hum as she went. After dinner, rather than relaxing in the front room, she shut herself into her bedroom.

Draco tried to seem coolly unaffected, to deteriorating results. The first day or two, he managed to act normal enough, but soon, during brainstorming, he found himself bringing up obscure facts that he remembered from Transfiguration, or History of Magic, or the Grindelwald books, waiting for her to give him an impressed look. She never did. Over meals, he mused aloud about arcane theoretical sub-branches of Arithmancy, hoping she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to launch into an excited monologue; he spoke about foreign Wizarding cultures and traditions, knowing they interested her; he even brought up details about his own life, being far more open than he would have liked in front of Potter. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Five days in, he said something to her about the _weather,_ for Merlin’s sake, and Potter looked at him like he was out of his mind. Hermione ignored this completely, finished her orange juice, and walked into the other room.

It might not have been so bad if his own mind hadn’t been in disarray. Since the night of the lake, he couldn’t seem to get his imagination under control. Thoughts of Halloween transformed until suddenly he was picturing kissing her against the library bookshelves, on the sofa in the front room, in the kitchen beside the stove. When she bound her hair up in a massive, frizzy bunch, he looked at the wispy curls at the back of her neck and imagined running his fingers over the skin there. Her constant lip-biting had become a kind of torture for him, the soft wetness of her mouth.

He imagined kissing her until she came open—until she told him what, in the name of Merlin’s last rotting tooth, she was _doing._

But over the course of the week, a seed of suspicion sprouted at the back of his mind.

Draco had gone through a million possibilities, and at this point, he didn’t know what else it could be. The fact was, she’d been strange since the night they’d gone to the lake. She’d been strange since the conversation when Draco had first allowed himself to imagine kissing her. He couldn’t even remember what they’d been talking about, only the rush of his thoughts and feelings, the conflicted shock of realizing the attraction he’d felt since Halloween.

She must have seen it in his expression. If not through Legilimency, then through intuition, she’d realized that he’d wanted her.

And this was her reaction. Absolute repulsion.

Draco didn’t understand. He’d thought she was attracted to him. He’d started to enjoy that particular tidbit of information. She’d seemed pleased to be friends, too. Who felt this way about a friend? Had he somehow misinterpreted every single signal he’d received from her?

But a hypothesis had formed for that mystery, too. She was Hermione Granger. Member of the Order, Gryffindor Prefect, founder of an elf rights society and a defense group to resist the Dark Lord. Right from the very beginning, this was who she’d always been.

And he was still the person who’d tried to murder Albus Dumbledore. He still had the Dark Mark on his forearm. Sometimes, last year, he’d used to look down at the Mark in the shower and wish he could just tear it off himself. He’d started doing that again, standing in the tub downstairs, in the very spot she’d stood on Halloween.

Maybe this was the extent of Hermione’s willingness to forgive. Maybe, despite all appearances, she still felt a deep-seated repulsion toward him, and the idea of involvement between them had crossed a serious boundary, one so offensive to her that she had to demonstrate how she really felt.

Maybe, he thought bitterly one afternoon in the library, that was why she’d looked so conflicted on Halloween night. Because when she was sober, the idea of touching him was morally, ethically repellent to her.

Draco told himself the theory was wrong. It had to be wrong. When had he ever been this off the mark on reading anyone? And this was _Hermione_ , the worst liar he’d ever met. He knew her.

He’d thought he’d known her.

“Are you paying attention?” Hermione said.

Draco blinked.

“Yes,” he lied.

“Good,” she said shortly. “Because we don’t have time to waste, you know.”

Hermione turned away with unnecessary affront. She began to turn through the clippings from the _Daily Prophets_ that they’d accumulated over the past two weeks.

“We’ll find a way in, Hermione,” Harry reassured her. “We’ve still got a month. It’ll be all right.”

She seemed to soften as she looked at Harry. Draco felt a hot stab of irritation and found himself resisting the urge to flick Potter’s glasses off the bridge of his nose.

 _Clear your mind,_ whispered the voice in his mind that always returned to him at moments of high emotion. And he tried, but spikes of annoyance kept breaking through, shattering his focus. It was several minutes before Draco managed to slip into that blank, unfeeling state.

After a long moment, Harry broke the silence, his voice tense. “There’s always the Imperius Curse.”

“Harry,” Hermione said, looking shocked.

“We’re not using it to hurt anyone, are we?” Harry said. “We just need someone on the inside. If we used it, we might not need to get into the manor at all.”

Draco reclined on his pile of cushions and leaned his elbow against the sofa. Who would’ve guessed that Potter had it in him? “Not an option,” he said idly.

“Why not?”

“The Unforgivables aren’t _Wingardium Leviosa,_ Potter. The Imperius gets harder the farther you are from the target, and the longer you control them, and the more naturally you want them to act. Death Eaters practice for years to get the kind of control you’re talking about.” Draco picked at one of the sofa cushions’ tassels. “We’re trying to break into a Ministry event, remember? Any idiot in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement will know what an amateur Imperius looks like. … Besides, we’d have to cast the curse when the caterers arrive, hours before the guests show up. We wouldn’t make it halfway through setup and decoration.”

“All right, all right,” Harry said grudgingly. “I get the idea.”

“We need something failsafe,” Hermione muttered, flipping through a thick, cracked, apparently untitled tome. “A potion would be ideal, but I’ve cross-checked hundreds of potions against the capabilities of Probity Probes, and it looks like our only options would be potions with really rare or expensive ingredients. Our money’s running low as it is.”

“How low?” Draco said.

“Well,” Hermione said to Harry, as if he’d been the one to ask, “the Galleons Mr. Weasley withdrew for us when we were at the Burrow are three-quarters gone on food. I’ve switched to my parents’ bank card, in case we really need a magical purchase, but, I mean, we’d need hundreds more Galleons to make one of these potions.” She shook her head. “Even then, I’d worry that the anti-intruder wards would set off alarms at traces of the magic, if we drink something that exotic or powerful.”

Harry sighed, slouching down in his chair. “Fantastic. No power. Let’s just fish a Halloween mask out of a bin at Marks and Spencer and give that a go, then.”

Draco snorted, but Hermione froze. Then she shot upright on her cushions.

“What?” Harry said.

“Of course,” she breathed. “Yes, _of course!_ Why didn’t I think of it? … Because they wouldn’t be able to detect it. … The wards wouldn’t pick it up, either. And no one would expect it.”

“What,” said Harry, looking bewildered, “a Halloween mask?”

“No, of course not,” Hermione said impatiently.

“Well,” Draco said, “please feel free to enlighten us at any time.”

She looked him in the eyes. Her expression, which had been so closed and cold, was suddenly open and enthusiastic, and Draco felt a kind of relief like the unclenching of a muscle. He realised exactly how much he’d missed that expression—the simple feeling that she liked being around him.

“Do you remember,” she said, “the night we were at my house in July?”

Draco’s hand tightened involuntarily on the sofa tassel. He wanted to say something clever and offhand, something to make her remember that, as recently as last week, they’d had enjoyable, friendly conversations. But all that came out was, “Of course.”

“You thought there was an Engorgement Charm on a bear on television.” Her voice was rising. “Well, for movies, Muggles change their looks all the time. They wear something called facial prosthetics. They’re a kind of makeup.” She looked to Harry. “We can go to London, to a studio that specialises in these kinds of things, and get ourselves transformed into different people using Muggle methods!”

Harry looked thunderstruck. “ _Hermione_.” He let out a laugh. “Of course— _Finite Incantatem_ won’t touch Muggle makeup!”

They both looked to Draco, waiting for his reaction. But Draco felt like his insides were filling with a heavy weight.

The idea made sense. It was possibly the only thing that made sense. And yet the idea of going into the heart of Muggle London, letting Muggles transform him … he didn’t want to think what his parents would have said.

“Is it safe?” he said warily.

“Of course it is,” Harry said with a scoff. “What do you think they’re going to do, cut off your nose?”

Draco didn’t answer. There was an uncomfortable silence, and little by little, the excitement faded from Hermione’s face. She looked away from him, her expression closing off again.

“It’s all right,” she said. “If you’re not comfortable with it, you don’t have to come.”

At first he thought it was a challenge, like the kind Pansy had used to give him. _Oh, you don’t_ have _to come into Hogsmeade with me, I’m sure you’ve got better things to do_.

Then, distinctly, he caught a glimpse of hurt on Hermione’s face.

Draco felt something sharp, like a pinprick to the center of his chest. His first instinct was defensiveness. All he’d asked was if it was safe. How was he supposed to know what Muggles did? Those _docker_ people in Muggle hospitals spent half their time chopping patients up, didn’t they?

But of course, Hermione hadn’t just taken the question at face value. She’d guessed the discomfort he felt at the idea of mixing with Muggles, his instinctive aversion—and it had hurt her.

Draco tried to understand. It was the first thing he’d said all week that she’d really reacted to. And yet her voice had been filled with resignation. _It’s all right,_ she’d said, with the tone of a foregone conclusion. Hermione Granger, the pushiest, most relentless person in his life, possibly in the world, who demanded more from everybody—when it came to this, she expected nothing else from him.

Then, in a moment like a lightning strike, Draco remembered. He recalled the exact words she’d said the night they’d gone to the lake, the very last piece of their conversation. _It’s the Muggle National Health Service._

And he hadn’t said anything in reply. He’d just sat there, unspeaking, trying to suppress his parents’ voices, trying to suppress his curiosity, trying not to think about kissing her, trying to find some silence in his head, straining and straining at himself—but Hermione hadn’t seen any glimpse of his thoughts. She’d had no idea what had been happening inside him. All she’d seen was that after she’d mentioned her Muggle parents, her life in the Muggle world, he’d gone silent.

He must have seemed disgusted, disdainful.

The weight in Draco’s stomach seemed to come alive, squirming horribly inside him. He suddenly remembered something he hadn’t thought about in years: the day before second year that he and his father had seen Hermione’s parents in Flourish and Blotts. His father had said to Mr. Weasley with cool revulsion, _The company you keep, Weasley. … And I’d thought your family could sink no lower_. He hadn’t even bothered to insult Hermione’s family directly, had considered them beneath the effort. All the way home, Lucius had made snide comments about them, about Muggles and their offspring, and Draco had gleefully agreed with every one.

Did Hermione think he still felt that way about Muggle-borns?

What _did_ he think?

He’d tried so hard not to delve into the subject, bent on avoiding every chaotic, destabilized feeling the subject awoke in him, but he couldn’t lean on avoidance forever. This was why she’d shut him out. This was what she needed to know.

But he needed to know, too. He couldn’t go on like this.

What did he believe?

Heat built in Draco’s head like a low-grade fever. He still had his relatives’ and friends’ voices in his mind, reminding him of everything he’d been raised to think, everything he’d believed his whole life, the elegance and refinement of pure blood, its innate superiority. And yet, in practice, what did that boil down to? He wasn’t better at magic than Hermione. He knew of half-bloods that were richer and more influential than his family. What did any of it actually _mean?_

With a pulse of something like anger or confusion or incomprehension, he thought about how, that day in Flourish and Blotts, he could have interrupted. He could have just made some excuse for them to leave, and Hermione and her parents wouldn’t have been hurt. It would even have been easy.

Why had his father needed to say anything about it at all?

He thought, if he could live that moment again right now, he would have steered his father out the door. He would have found a reason.

Suddenly, with a dizzy feeling, like he’d held his breath too long, he wanted Hermione to know that. He needed her to know. But he didn’t know how to express it, other than to say, the words pushing out haltingly, ungracefully—

“Yeah. I’ll go.”

Hermione looked up at him with naked surprise. “You … you will?”

She was looking at him the way she hadn’t all week. Her eyes were the warm, sweet brown of honeyed tea, and her slightly parted lips looked soft. Draco had the sensation of drawing breath after three minutes underwater. In that moment he felt like the library was slipping around him, like he was losing his grip on something. He’d agreed to go into Muggle London.

He tried to relax back against the sofa, tried to sound unconcerned. “Yeah, well, I’ve just had it on the Chosen One’s authority that nobody’s going to cut my nose off, so, I suppose.”

He wanted her to smile, but she didn’t even seem happy. She looked disturbed, almost panicked. Heat was moving through Draco’s whole body now, washing over the back of his neck, the undersides of his arms. _I’ll go,_ he thought again, trying to make the thought feel stable, normal. _I’ll go, I’ll go_. He was going to somewhere new. And to go somewhere new, he had to leave something behind.

He’d left so much behind already, he would have thought the feeling would feel familiar, but every time it was the same. Every time it was tying on a blindfold. Every time it was walking into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gonna be totally honest here, i love relationships and deep feelings and transformative character arcs and everything, but coming up with ridiculous book titles, company names, and random Wizarding details is my absolute favorite part of fanfiction. i’m gonna write a whole fic about Lizzie Spizzworth.


	16. The Other London

Hermione woke up tired the next morning. She’d had the dream again last night, headier and more intense. This time, though, her eyes had been open. She hadn’t thought, at any point, that it was anyone but him.

She lay in bed a while, looking at the ceiling, thinking.

The week had been, frankly, awful. Harry had noticed her change in attitude, of course. After three days of her silent treatment, when she’d been out in the garden for some air, her hands cupped around the bluebell flames she loved to conjure, he’d come to her and said, “Look, Hermione—did something happen with Malfoy?”

He already sounded suspicious, as if he were ready to fight Draco if he’d done something. Hermione had felt a rush of fondness for Harry then. She could have hugged him, if it wouldn’t have set his hair alight.

“Not really,” she’d said. “I suppose I just … I got my hopes up a bit, that’s all. That he’d really changed.” Her voice came out quiet and small, and it was a relief to be herself, not the persona she’d been putting on in the cottage.

Harry had held out his hands toward the bluebell flame, warming his fingers. After a moment, he said, “He sort of seems like he has, though, doesn’t he?”

“He’s—yes, I mean, in some ways, of course he has. Hunting the Horcruxes, being friendly with both of us. … But have _you_ ever actually heard him contradict the things he always used to say? All that pure-blood obsession?”

“Well, no,” Harry admitted. “I suppose he just doesn’t really talk about it anymore. It’s still different from how he used to act, though.”

“Yes, but …”

She hadn’t been able to finish the sentence. _But it doesn’t feel like enough._ Saying it would have shown her hand—would have shown how much she cared, unwillingly, what Draco thought.

Still, she thought Harry understood anyway, in that unspoken way he often seemed to.

She’d told herself over and over that distance was the only answer. Soon it would be easier to hold Draco at bay, and then she’d stop thinking about his opinions on Muggles and Muggle-borns with this feeling like teetering on the edge of a cliff. She’d told herself this was the only way to keep herself safe.

But part of her kept doubting.

All week, she’d thought Draco had seemed unhappy. It wasn’t an obvious thing. He hadn’t made any mention of her behaviour, though she hadn’t really expected him to, proud as he was.

Yet there had been a shift in his manner. She’d seen hints of confusion, then dissatisfaction, even dejection. And through it all, he’d kept trying to talk to her. Over and over, he’d tried, always using the same casual tone, as if everything were still normal between them, as if this time he could break through to her, or this time, or the next. Every day it felt worse to be so abrupt. He’d brought up one of her favourite sub-branches of Arithmancy on Monday, and the effort it had taken not to enthuse about it had been excruciating.

Clearly he _did_ feel their relationship was something more than convenience.

 _That’s not the real point,_ she told herself, angry about the small, hopeful bubble that seemed to have swelled up in her. The point was his _beliefs_. The point was that she refused, point blank, to argue her own worth to him.

But then, yesterday, Draco had said he would come into Muggle London, and her thoughts had been thrown into disarray. She didn’t know what to do with the information. He’d agreed to go into a sea of Muggles without complaint, without any smart remarks, without even a sneer or a look of disdain. All this, when scarcely a week ago he’d heard one simple reference to her upbringing and shorted out like a circuit?

 _It doesn’t necessarily mean anything_ , she reminded herself. He hadn’t said anything about Muggles, anything about what he thought or felt—just that he would come. And if he wanted to see Malfoy Manor again, then he _had_ to come, didn’t he? Holding his nose out of necessity wasn’t the same thing as change.

Still, she hadn’t expected even for a moment that he would do it, let alone without protest.

She found it especially hard to be frosty to him over breakfast that day. Maybe it was the new disorganisation of her feelings. Maybe it was just because she was so exhausted, or because Harry slept late and it was only the two of them, cutlery clinking against their plates, Draco looking tired and wan and a little bit sad. Whatever the reason, she noticed the delicate indigo colour of the circles beneath his eyes, the arches of his brows, the Y shapes in the cartilage of his ears, the way his lower lip looked bitten. His hair was rumpled in a way that made her imagine its texture.

“Didn’t sleep well?” he asked, his voice quiet and scratchy.

“No,” she said, quiet too. “Nor you?”

Draco hesitated, clearly taken aback at her engagement. “No,” he said. “I haven’t slept well all week.”

Hermione didn’t answer. Something quavered in her at the answer, the tentative reference to her coldness. It felt so good to speak to him like a normal person again, even for just three words. She missed the ease they’d had.

She missed him.

As the silence stretched, the feeling intensified, running through her. She _missed_ him. She missed his little stories about his life and his friends, his reluctant, closed-off nostalgia. She missed the way he said _Granger_ with light, laughing irony, and she missed teasing him back, and seeing him smile. She missed the way he’d look away when he mentioned anything about the previous year, the feeling that she was the only one he trusted with the truth. She missed him reassuring her in casual, nearly invisible ways when she was so deep into her worries about the war that she couldn’t see straight.

She missed _looking_ at him. The acute point of his chin, the quicksilver eyes. The lips that her dreams told her would be slightly rough, like linen. The occasional pink in his cheeks, when he let on too much and wanted to backtrack.

For a wild moment she considered just demanding what he meant by it, by agreeing to come into Muggle London.

But if he gave the answer she didn’t want to hear? If he revealed disgust, even distaste?

The idea still felt like a stiletto knife sliding into a nervous centre.

 _Distance,_ she thought, taking a deep, slow breath. _Distance._

He didn’t try to speak to her again for the rest of breakfast. It was a relief, but also made her feel a pang she hadn’t anticipated. _It’s good if he’s given up,_ she thought at once, now properly angry with herself. It meant she didn’t have to be outright cold anymore. He’d gotten the message. She could avoid without wounding, now.

Still, when she left the table, she thought she could feel him watching her.

That afternoon, with the crux of the infiltration plan in place, they began to work out the specifics. Hoping to target Umbridge in the bathroom, they decided Hermione should be the one who attended as a guest, while Harry and Draco would apply for Lizzie Spizzworth’s.

Their first thought for Hermione was a fake invitation and a false name on the guest list—but altering the list would have involved getting into the Ministry’s Office of Domestic Magical Affairs. Faking an invitation would be difficult, too. When they’d been at Rita Skeeter’s house, Hermione had tried to duplicate the invitation, or to Transfigure it to read a different name, but it had been charmed to resist both, so they’d left it behind, not wanting to arouse suspicion by stealing it.

It came to them in the evening, as they sat before a merrily crackling fire in the front room. Rita Skeeter’s invitation had read, _We regret that we are unable to accommodate plus-one invitations for media correspondents._

“For media correspondents,” Harry said triumphantly. “Not for members of the Ministry.”

“What are you saying?” Hermione said. “You want me to—to Confund a Ministry employee into asking me to the gala?”

“No,” Harry said.

“Well, good, because that would be—”

“I’ll Confund him. Or Draco will. You just need to start a conversation.”

Hermione gaped at him.

“Not a bad idea,” Draco muttered.

“I was thinking Percy,” Harry said, “but—”

“ _Absolutely not,_ ” Hermione hissed. “I’d rather drink Bubotuber Pus! How can you even _suggest—_ ”

“ _But_ he knows what your voice sounds like, so it wouldn’t work.” Harry hesitated. “It did make me think, though. Mr. Weasley should be at the gala. Maybe we can … well, ask him how Ron is, if he still hasn’t come back by then.”

Hermione felt a guilty squeeze. “Yes. Er, that’s a good idea.”

There was a pause. Then Harry sighed. “I really thought he’d be back for the sword. I mean, he was so keen on feeling like we were getting somewhere with the Horcruxes. … I thought he’d want to know.”

“Coming back means apologizing,” Draco said with cool distaste. “Are you sure he could manage it?”

Harry bristled. “Ron hasn’t got a problem apologizing, Malfoy, unlike some.”

Hermione went very still. An unpleasant silence spread throughout the room.

Draco sat up slowly on his cushions. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Harry looked like he regretted saying anything. For a fraction of a second, his eyes strayed toward Hermione.

“Oh, be quiet, you two,” Hermione blurted, trying to sound dismissive, as if this were any other meaningless squabble. _For Merlin’s sake, Harry,_ she thought furiously.

“I don’t think Ron’s at the Burrow,” she rushed on. “I think he must be trying to find Hufflepuff’s Cup on his own. That’s all I can really think of—that he wants to come back having done something to help. That must be it.”

Harry cleared his throat. “Right. Well. We can ask Mr. Weasley at the gala, is the point.”

Draco was looking at Hermione, a light frown sharpening his angular features. He didn’t seem to have heard a word Harry had said.

“And whoever asks you,” Harry went on, more loudly, “it should be someone whose family is in good standing with the Ministry.” He glanced at Draco. “Er, do you know any Slytherins just out of Hogwarts who work there?”

Draco finally looked away from Hermione. He thought for a moment, then gave a curt nod. “Yeah. Theo Nott’s older brother is a Trainee Auror.”

The tension in Hermione’s stomach released. She let out a slow breath. _The plan,_ she thought. _Good._ _Just focus on the plan._

“An Auror’s too risky,” she said. “We need someone without combat training. Someone who won’t realise that they’ve been Confunded.”

“Marcus Flint, then. Department of Magical Games and Sports.”

Hermione couldn’t help but make a face.

“What?” Harry said.

“Oh, nothing,” she said with distaste. “But … well, he’s older. Wasn’t he a seventh-year when we were third-years? He’ll be twenty-two now, or something. And he’s mean-looking,” she added.

Draco was looking down at his notes, but Hermione thought she saw his lip twitch.

“Hermione,” Harry said, his patience clearly wearing thin, “you won’t actually be getting into a relationship with Marcus Flint.”

“Yes, well, I’ll have to see him more than once, won’t I?” she shot back. “Once the initial Confundus Charm wears off, he can’t just decide he felt a bit impulsive that day and cancel by owl. He has to be—” She was blushing now— “actually _interested._ And I’m sorry, Harry, but the only memory I have of Marcus Flint is when he tried to scare you off your broom by pretending to be a Dementor.”

“Ahh,” Harry said wistfully, aiming a grin at Draco. “That was a great match, wasn’t it? I seem to recall blasting a Patronus at the four of you.”

Draco hadn’t had many retorts the past few days, but he raised one eyebrow at Harry and said, “Your finest moment, Potter. How’d it feel to peak at thirteen?”

“Fantastic,” Harry said.

Draco settled back on his cushions, running a hand through his hair. “There’d have to be a reason why Flint didn’t already know a pure-blood girl our age.”

“Easy,” Harry said. “Hermione, you can say you’ve just graduated from an international school, and you’ve just moved here, and…”

“… and it would be just _so_ helpful,” Hermione went on in a low, flattering voice, “if someone would show me around Wizarding London and introduce me to the right people.”

“Yeah,” Draco said slowly. “Yeah, it could work. … He has a _type,_ though. And Quidditch is basically his entire personality. And his family’s really traditional. You’ll have to know every tiny thing about pure-blood rituals.”

“Where am I even supposed to meet him?” Hermione said.

“Circe & Clíodhna,” said Draco without even hesitating. “It’s a Wizarding bar not far from the Ministry. Basically all the Slytherin alumni go there after work on Fridays. Flint told me about it summer before last.”

“Perfect,” said Harry. “We’ll do it this Friday, then.”

“But—but that only gives us a day and a half to prepare,” Hermione said.

“Hermione, we really don’t want him asking someone else. We don’t want anyone involved in this.”

Hermione sighed. That was true. The last thing they needed was Marcus Flint’s jilted lover poking her nose into who exactly this new girl was.

She tried not to think of the jokes Draco would have made about the idea of _Marcus Flint’s jilted lover._

“A day and a half is plenty of time,” Harry went on, gaining steam. “We’ll go into Muggle London tomorrow morning to make an appointment for our disguises—I reckon we won’t just be able to stroll in somewhere on the spot. Then, in the afternoon, I’ll take some Polyjuice and go drop off the Spizzworth’s applications, and Draco, you can help Hermione figure out how to get Flint interested. We’ll get the disguises done Friday morning and you’ll meet him that evening.”

There was a silence. Hermione realized she was waiting to see how Draco would react.

“Yeah,” Draco said. “All right.” He sounded nearly careless.

Hermione hated the candle of feeling that still burned in her chest, small and bright, no matter how she tried to blow it out.

* * *

On Thursday morning, Draco awoke feeling almost nauseated. He’d lain awake for hours last night, nerves flaring, running through reams of memories of his parents. Not just all the things they’d ever said about Muggles and Muggle-borns, either, but the way they’d looked at him when he was younger, the constant glow of pride in their faces.

He’d remembered his mother letting out one broken sob when she’d clasped him in her arms at Grimmauld Place, the night they’d faked their deaths. He’d never heard anything like that from her. He expected no one besides his father ever had. By the time the embrace had broken, she was already collected again, her thin pale face rigid with suppressed emotion.

He’d remembered his father coming out of the Floo from Azkaban. His mother had seemed to melt into his father’s arms, and then, when Lucius looked at Draco, thin and grey-faced from the effect of the Dementors, he’d extended a shaking hand and drawn Draco into the embrace. For the first time in a year, huddled against his parents, Draco had felt safe.

He’d felt like a child again. He never would have admitted that that was something he’d missed.

His parents had given him everything he’d ever wanted. They’d raised him with a degree of love, attention, and affection that he knew was unparalleled even within his group of friends, who were generally prized and pampered at home. They’d never asked him for a single thing—except, maybe, that he become the man they’d raised him to be.

Draco had never in his life taken a step that felt so opposed to their wishes. Defecting from the Dark Lord, even hunting the Horcruxes, was one thing—he’d done all that to keep the family safe, to take steps toward restoring their lives.

Going to Muggle London was different. He tried to tell himself he was acting out of necessity, but it just wasn’t true. He couldn’t lie to himself so easily anymore. That curious part of him kept hissing questions in the back of his mind, kept demanding to know more, to understand, see this world where Hermione and Potter had grown up, that his family and friends hated so much.

Maybe, he thought, he would arrive there and easily see why they acted with disgust. That was a possibility. Maybe he would finally see the evidence for what his family had always said about Muggles being dirty, oafish, like sheep, a disgrace for wizards to associate with.

 _But if not? If there’s no reason?_ whispered the voice in his mind.

For once he didn’t know whose voice it was. Maybe his own. And he had no answer for its questions.

When he came out of his room, Potter was already in the kitchen, cooking breakfast.

“Hi,” Potter said.

“Morning,” Draco said, squinting through the weak rays of sun. “Why are you awake? I thought we weren’t leaving for an hour and a half.”

“We’re not. I wanted to talk to you.”

Draco hesitated, then sat down at the kitchen table, feeling much less groggy all of a sudden. Was he going to find out what Potter had meant by that _apology_ comment yesterday?

“Talk, then,” he said.

Potter tapped his wand on the stove, and the flames beneath the saucepan shrank to small golden teeth. He turned, his face serious.

“Er.” Potter rubbed the back of his neck. “First of all, you’ve been a big help the past few months. So, there’s that, and, yeah, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” said Draco, suspicious. Somehow he doubted this was a conversation revolving around gratitude.

Potter hesitated for a long moment. He seemed to be considering how best to phrase whatever it was he was about to say.

“Look,” he said finally. “I can’t be sure what’s going on in your head. I don’t know if you’ve gone back on all that stuff you used to say in school, or whether you’re just quiet about it now, or—”

Draco’s heart had begun to beat very hard. He wasn’t prepared to talk about this with anyone, let alone with Potter. Defensive words came out of him before he could even think. “Good thing I don’t owe you an expl—”

“That’s not the point,” Potter cut in.

Confused, Draco broke off.

“I don’t need to know what you think,” Potter went on. “Honestly, at this point I don’t much care. You’re helping us, so whatever the reason is, fine.” He crossed his arms. “But I do care about Hermione. And when we go into London today, and tomorrow, and whenever else we need to, just …”

His eyes bored into Draco, as shrewd as they had been the day Hermione had first started giving him the silent treatment. “Whatever’s been going on between the pair of you—and I don’t need to know,” he added quickly, “or anything. I’m not asking. I’m just … I’m pretty sure you don’t want to make things worse. Am I wrong?”

Draco hesitated for a long moment, feeling wary. So all this had been building up in Potter’s mind this week. That was unexpected.

He moved his head in the tiniest shake.

“Right, then,” Potter said. “In that case, I’m asking you to just—act normally, would you? Talk about the plan, and Flint, and whatever else. Ask questions about things. Don’t … don’t _jeer_ at anything.”

“Potter,” said Draco stiffly, “I know how to be polite.”

“Oh, so you just chose not to be for six years, then.”

“Yes. Obviously.”

A flicker of amusement in Potter’s eyes disrupted his seriousness.

“It’s not like she’ll answer any questions I ask,” Draco muttered. “She won’t say _anything_ to me, if you haven’t noticed.”

Potter sighed. “Yeah, well …”

But at that moment, they heard footsteps on the stairs down the hall. Potter lowered his voice. “I’ll answer the questions,” he said quietly. “It’ll be fine. Just don’t overthink it.”

He turned back to the stove as Hermione entered the room, poring over a map of London.

Draco stood, motions stiff, and began to set the table, though he was still mulling over what Potter had said. _Don’t overthink it. … I don’t need to know what you think … I don’t much care._

It was strange how much relief those words brought him. With his thoughts about blood status nearly nonstop these days, he’d started to feel like there were no safe thoughts to have. If he questioned his parents’ ideals, he was a blood traitor who would be derided by everyone from his old life. If he tried to cling to those principles, that dubious voice in his head awoke and started hissing at him, and he thought of Hermione trying to hide her hurt expression. Moreover, the thoughts felt so _loud_ , as if all usual rules of privacy had shattered and Hermione or Potter could see the turmoil swarming all over his face.

He’d needed Potter’s reminder. All anyone knew was what he chose to show. He could show normalcy today, even if he didn’t feel it.

Still, it was with a feeling of slow panic that Draco ate breakfast and prepared for their departure. He still didn’t feel ready when they packed their things, slipped their wands into their pockets, Disillusioned themselves, and Disapparated.

_Crack._

They were standing in a puddle in a small, dim alley, a crack of blue sky high overhead.

“All clear,” Potter said.

Draco’s palms were clammy at his sides. They lifted their Disillusionments, walked down the alley, and emerged into a broad, bright street.

Draco couldn’t remember when, if ever, he’d seen Muggles in these kinds of numbers. Mostly, when he and his parents had needed to come into London before, they’d used Floo to get to their Wizarding destinations. Every year, coming to Diagon Alley, they'd taken him by Side-Along Apparition directly into the Leaky Cauldron, and, like all his friends' parents, they'd always paid the substantial fee to Apparate directly into Platform 9¾, too. The most he’d seen of Muggle London had been the view through the windows at Grimmauld Place, which was in a secluded square.

Here, in the centre of some busy neighbourhood, the flood of information overwhelmed him. Everywhere were Muggle clothes: jeans in every shade of blue, oddly shaped hats that fit tightly over heads, clunky shoes striped with neon, coats made of silvery fabric that glistened with recent drizzle. Nearby, a pair of Muggle children were laughing and playing with toys of a hard, shiny material, which buzzed and flashed. A man bustled out of a nearby shop wearing what looked like a pair of black earmuffs, which were attached by a long cord to a glimmering grey oval in his hand; he was humming to himself.

“All right,” said Potter, obviously unperturbed by any of this. “Which way do you reckon, Hermione?”

“Well,” she said, “in the absence of a phone book, I think we should ask for directions or recommendations from the first salon or hairdresser we find.”

“Sounds good,” Potter said. “Lead on.”

Draco trailed after them up the busy street. Rolling down the road were car after car after car. Draco had _seen_ cars, of course; the Ministry had a fleet of them, and occasionally Ministry officials would glide up to the manor gates in one of those black machines. But his parents had always considered it distasteful to use them, and of course they’d never needed to resort to the Knight Bus for transportation, so it was all very alien. He glanced through the window of a boxy, bright yellow car and saw a woman gripping a thin leather-bound wheel with one hand, twiddling a series of dials with her other. The next vehicle was as different to the first as a flying carpet was to a broom—a clunky, roaring thing with a fifteen-foot-long metal box affixed to its end, rolling along on an additional dozen tyres.

“There,” Hermione said, pointing across the street. “Come on.”

And she stepped onto the shiny black material of the road—toward a moving car.

“Wait!” Draco blurted, grabbing her by the elbow.

She looked at him with bewilderment. “What?”

“It—it was—” He pointed at the blue car, which was rolling slowly past now, the driver also giving Draco a funny look. “It’s still going.”

Hermione’s confusion deepened. “Yes, at about five miles an hour.”

Draco opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“They’ll stop to let you pass if traffic’s this slow,” explained Potter, looking highly amused. “They’re not just going to roll into you. Look.”

And he jogged onto the black road, lifting a hand at the next driver, who pulled to a halt. Potter crossed safely.

“Ah.” Draco realized his fingers were still curled around Hermione’s arm and let go at once. “Right.”

Hermione made a funny noise that quickly turned into a cough. Draco’s cheeks felt hot as he followed her across the street, and the three of them pushed into a hair salon.

Draco felt even more out of place inside. All around the salon were silver machines, some like hoops, others like bowls, several of which were lowered over the heads of seated Muggle women wearing black aprons.

“Good morning,” said Hermione brightly to the woman at the front counter.

The woman looked up from the magazine she was reading and gave Hermione’s bushy hair a long, startled look. As her eyes slid onto Potter’s hair, her expression turned to something like dread, but finally she looked to Draco, and her expression eased. It was to Draco she addressed the question: “Here for an appointment?” she said. “Or … your friends are?”

Draco’s whole body tensed. He was acutely aware that this was the first time he’d ever spoken with a Muggle. The closest he’d come had been that man at the Quidditch World Cup, and his parents had done all the talking then; Draco had watched from behind with a kind of morbid interest.

He glanced at Hermione and Potter, who were both looking back at him, faces unreadable.

He looked back to the Muggle woman. She had shiny dark hair that reminded him of Pansy’s. She had a metal stud in her eyebrow—some kind of Muggle religious symbol, maybe?

“No,” Draco said. “We’re looking for a studio specialising in facial prothletics.”

She blinked. “Facial what?”

Hermione cleared her throat. “Prosthetics. We’re film students—we wondered if you had any recommendations.”

The woman’s look of disapproval faded, and she rubbed thoughtfully at her chin. “What are you trying to look like?” She glanced back to Draco. “Vampires?”

Draco blinked at her, stung.

“No,” Potter said. “We don’t need monster makeup, or anything. We’re trying to look like different people for our film. A bit older, maybe.”

“Give Leo Clifton’s a go. It’s over in Kensington, right near the Notting Hill station.”

The second they were outside again, Draco said, “What did she mean, _vampires?_ ” It was hard not to feel miffed, not to mention confused. His father had once done some liaising with a vampire enclave in Germany, and none of the vampires they’d met on that trip had looked anything like him. Neither had they exactly been avatars of good looks.

“Well, Muggles don’t think they’re real, obviously,” said Potter as they headed back down the street toward the alley where they’d Apparated in. “And vampires are all really pale in Muggle movies.”

“Why are they pale?”

Potter glanced at Hermione, who was watching her feet as they walked. “I dunno,” he said. “I suppose because it makes them look like they haven’t got blood?”

“But they do have blood,” Draco said. “Just because it’s not circulating, doesn’t mean—”

“Yeah, well, how are Muggles supposed to know the details?”

Draco felt agitated. Just then, another person wearing those odd black earmuffs walked by, holding the same shining grey oval.

“What are those earmuffs for?” he blurted, unable to stop himself. “It’s not that cold.”

“They’re headphones,” Potter said. “You can listen to music through them. It comes out of the CD player. The grey thing.”

“CD player?” Draco repeated. He was aware of how stupid he sounded, even infantile, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. After weeks of suppressed preoccupation over what the Muggle world really was, how it behaved, how it operated, he was _here_ , in the thick of it. He had this feeling like the rush of adrenalin before a Quidditch match, or possibly the realization that he was in a dream, with a puzzle that he needed to solve before he awoke.

Besides, Potter had told him to ask questions, hadn’t he? And wouldn’t it seem twice as stupid to pretend like nothing around him existed? At headquarters he’d been able to act like he wasn’t thinking about it. Here, with everything pressing in on him, there was nothing else to think about. This was all.

“A CD is something that holds music,” Potter said. “It’s been recorded onto it. Like …” Potter was clearly struggling for words.

Then Hermione spoke.

“Imagine an Echo Charm,” she said, “but cast on a disc. If you put the disc into a player, it’ll play the song as many times as you’d like.”

Draco looked down at her. She hadn’t faced him, and her voice had the kind of intense restraint that suggested Occlumency.

 _It’s the Muggle National Health Service,_ he heard her say.

It suddenly seemed so pointless that he hadn’t asked the questions then.

“Come on,” she said, slipping into the alley.

Another quick Apparition later, they were walking into a shop whose sign read LEO CLIFTON: PROFESSIONAL MAKEUP FOR THE STAGE AND TELEVISION. A little bell clattered on the door as they walked in. “Give us a minute,” called a voice from the back of the shop.

“Thanks,” Hermione called back.

Draco glanced around Leo Clifton’s shop. There were shelves upon shelves of bottles, most of which appeared to be filled with paint. Other shelves held makeup, which didn’t look so different from the lipsticks and eyeshadow that his mother had once kept in a cabinet at the manor. And posters hung on the wall with those unmoving Muggle faces, advertising what must have been those ‘movies’ Hermione had described.

Draco found the frozen images uncanny at first, but he also found it hard to look away. The photographic images didn’t move, but second by second, he felt as if he were deciphering more and more of their stillness, seeing hints of expression in a squinted eye or an open mouth that he wouldn’t have noticed if the people in the posters had been moving the normal way.

Just then, a small man with combed-back chestnut hair came bouncing out of a back room, pushing up his glasses with an apologetic smile. “So sorry for the wait,” he panted. “We’re shorthanded here today. I’m fixing up a Minotaur and a 3,000-year-old alien as we speak! But the moulds are setting now, so, what can I do for you? Leo Clifton, Leo Clifton.”

He offered his hand to each of them in turn. Draco hesitated, lifting his hand only halfway before Leo Clifton seized it and shook with great enthusiasm. The man’s handshake was cool and dry and confident.

“Lovely to meet you,” Hermione said. “I’m Penelope Clearwater, and this is Neville Longbottom and Stan Shunpike. We’re film students, and we’re trying to look like different people for a short movie we’re shooting over the next month.”

“Different people, eh? How different?”

“We’d like to be completely unrecognizable,” Hermione said.

“We’re trying to fool our acting class,” Potter added. “Also, Stan and I, we’d like to look around ten or fifteen years older.”

“Hmm.” Leo Clifton studied the three of them. Draco shifted uncomfortably. The man’s eyes were piercing, and he was looking at each of their faces as if they were marble blocks he intended to carve.

“Well, the hair will have to go, for starters,” he said. “I could cover your faces and recognize all three of you from a mile away. You—” He waved a hand at Draco— “could get away with dye, but you two … well, they wouldn’t really _fit_ under wigs, would they? We’ll straighten _this …_ ” He was moving his hand over Hermione’s head now as if casting a wandless spell. “… and shave you, I think, Neville.”

Potter startled. “Shave?”

Clifton smiled. “It grows back. Bald caps are more trouble than they’re worth. The rest should be easy enough.” His eyes flicked back to Draco. “Your bone structure will need some disguising, too, so we’ll give you a nice full beard, and bronze up that complexion …”

Clifton took out a notepad and began to jot things down, looking between them and muttering things like, “New nose for you, I think,” and “Light eye bags should do the trick.”

The man was reminding Draco more and more of Ollivander. Here was a man who clearly loved what he did, who had clearly done it for decades, who spoke his vocation like a second language. As Clifton discussed payment with Hermione, Draco’s eyes fell on a section of the wall he hadn’t noticed before. Here were hung not posters but news clippings. _THE MAN BEHIND THE MONSTERS,_ read the first, with a full-page photo of a clearly elated Clifton. _THE FACE OF BRITAIN’S FACES,_ said a magazine cover, and in that one, Clifton was holding a statuette and standing at a podium—again, beaming.

It occurred to Draco he might be standing in a famous person’s studio.

In fact, with the vastness of the Muggle world, two hundred Muggles for every one wizard, he could well be speaking with a man who was known to more people than any wizard in Britain. Someone more famous than Potter, or Albus Dumbledore, or even the Dark Lord.

Draco felt oddly lightheaded. It was as if he’d kicked off from the ground at the start of a Quidditch match, but left half of himself behind. He felt as if he were moving farther and farther away, looking down at the entire world, and his smallness within it, and suddenly seeing the impossible breadth of Muggle civilisations—so many Muggles, billions of them, of whom Leo Clifton was just one. After seventeen years of not thinking about any of this, of viewing anything outside the Wizarding World as utterly without interest, virtually non-existent, Draco felt minuscule. He felt like he needed to sit down.

“Tomorrow, then! Eleven sharp. Looking forward to it, Ms. Clearwater.” Leo Clifton flashed those brilliantly white teeth at them again, lifted his hand, and jogged toward the back room, calling, “You’d better not have touched those noses!”

Draco trailed out of the shop after Hermione and Potter. He blinked in the cold November sunlight, dazed. He looked around at all the Muggles passing, and heard snippets of conversation between friends and families hurrying down the street.

“—the _most_ beautiful car, bloody expensive, obviously, but …”

“—she’s always been rude, Jane. Always, always. Didn’t I tell you …”

“—hand back the reports by next week at the latest …”

“— _Mum,_ you’re not _looking._ Mum! …”

Draco’s daze was turning to numbness, and it felt stupid, and trite, but two words were ringing in his head over and over. _Just people._

They were people like he might hear walking up the street at Diagon Alley. People involved in their jobs and lives and families. Parents as protective as his were, or as disinterested as Pansy’s, or as expectant as Hermione’s.

He saw tired-looking workers wanting a day off. Men in expensive watches giving orders. A couple holding hands and looking at each other in the kind of glowing way that Draco could all but feel. People irritated, and laughing, and sad-eyed, and devoted.

“Do you fancy lunch?” Potter said, eyeing a shop across the street that advertised chips.

Hermione checked her watch. “Yes, let’s. We’ve got plenty of time.”

Draco swallowed, nodded.

Soon they were sitting in a booth inside the shop, and Draco was licking salt off his fingertips. His head had stopped whirling. Everything now felt very slow and calm and quiet, to a nearly surreal degree. At the counter, a machine kept letting out a bright, cheerful _ding!_

He watched Hermione’s hands fidget with the chequered, greasy paper in its shiny red basket.

“What’s this,” he said quietly, tapping his own basket. “What’s it made of.”

Potter hesitated, then glanced at Hermione.

“Plastic,” Hermione said. “It’s a synthetic material. Not found in nature, that is.” Her voice was still guarded.

“How do you … how is it made?”

“That kind specifically, I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s a diverse scientific process. This kind of plastic is different from the kind that makes up these booths, for instance, or the cash register.”

She pointed to the machine that let out another _ding!_

“Right,” Draco said. He looked over at the machine and the sweaty-looking teenager who was tapping its surface, speaking to customers.

At that moment, the present customer, who was complaining in a loud, obnoxious voice, turned away. The teenager caught Draco watching the interaction and gave the tiniest roll of his eyes, clearly at the end of his rope. Draco could practically hear him saying, _People like that, eh?_

It was such a minuscule thing. Such a tiny, human thing. But suddenly Draco’s throat grew so tight he thought he might choke.

He saw his parents sitting at the end of their glimmering dining table and speaking about Muggles with fear and disgust. He saw the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters standing in a circle around the Muggle from the village, whose body was twitching and jerking. He saw himself and his friends in the Slytherin common room in first year, eleven years old, laughing about the filth of the Muggle world and everything that came from it. It was one of the ways they’d related to each other, how they’d felt they were special, different, and important.

Draco realized he was sweating. All the energy he and his friends and family poured into hating Muggles, when Muggles didn’t even know wizards _existed_. The one-sided loathing suddenly seemed almost farcical, the behaviour of obsessives. That boy at the register just trying to get through the day, Leo Clifton and his monster masks, the girl in the street trying to get her mum to pay attention to her— _these_ were the people they all hated?

 _These_ were the people he’d been told were brutish and inferior, worthless and subhuman, and yet sinister, too—the people who would bring about the destruction of pure-blood life?

Draco felt out of his own body. He felt as if he were seeing himself from across the grubby little chip shop, a wizard in a plastic booth, small and out of place, plucked from the roots of his family and the ancient ideals of his house, set adrift in a maelstrom of differences he’d thought were irreconcilable.

Then he looked away from the counter and saw, with a flood of relief, that Hermione was looking at him. Her gaze felt like an anchor in the storm. He looked into her eyes; he needed her not to look away. He could see doubt in her expression, and frustration, too—the kind she usually wore when she was puzzling out seemingly unsolvable logistical issues.

 _Let her look,_ said that numb voice in his mind. Let her look at him and try to solve him.

Let her see the way something in him was collapsing, no longer able to support itself.

Draco had the sense of standing upon a threshold, looking out into wild, uncharted territory. If he truly no longer believed what his family lived by, if he really was a blood traitor like his aunt, his old life was lost. Even if the Dark Lord fell, there would be no going back. This new world, unmoored from everything he’d known, would be all he had.

It was terrifying.

But it was something else, too.

It was _quiet_ out there, over the threshold—as quiet and still as a field with no breeze.

In the new world there would be no chorus of voices in his mind, no Bellatrix hissing in his ear, always reminding him what was expected of him. He would be able to think, just think and feel, without the sensation that someone was watching him all the time. He would be able to ask simple questions, and consider their answers, without feeling guilty and disloyal and bitter and furious, hating his own interest, hating himself for breaching the contract of his upbringing. He would be able to care openly about Hermione, be friends with her openly, make her smile whenever he wanted, even have his thoughts of kissing her … he could _want_ her, and it could be simple. Allowed.

She looked so lovely to him just then, her hair falling in a thousand directions, scarf tossed carelessly over her shoulder, salt and oil upon her lips.

He wanted the world that had her in it.

* * *

Hermione didn’t want Harry to leave the house.

She fretted and fussed and delayed. She went over their falsified applications until mid-afternoon, when the winter sun began to sink and Harry told her he had to go now or the submission box could be closed for the day.

She watched him Disapparate with a feeling like she was stepping over the edge of a high dive. And then she and Draco were alone in the kitchen. She looked determinedly at the sink but saw only him in her peripheral vision, tall and tensed and silent.

She felt the week between them like a physical object. She felt, too, the way he’d looked at her in the chip shop in Kensington. The closest thing she’d ever seen to that expression had been the moment he’d been struck by the curse in the Ministry.

“Well, we’ve only got a day,” she said, her voice high and thin. “Come on.” She gathered up parchment and quill, and he followed her out of the kitchen, down the hall, into the darkened dining room. She was so aware of how close his steps were behind hers.

“So,” she said, busying herself with lighting the lamps. “Circe and Clíodhna. In case something goes wrong, is it warded against Apparition?”

“No,” Draco said, settling at the head of the table.

“Good.” Hermione spread a sheet of parchment near the opposite end of the table and made a note. “You or Harry will obviously need to come, too, to Confund Flint.” She could hear her words speeding. She tried to calm down; she tried to breathe normally. “And I think two dates should be enough to keep him interested between the initial meeting and the gala, provided he actually _is_ interested. Provided this is even possible.”

“It’s possible,” Draco said. He drew his wand and flicked it, and a Warming Charm spread through the dining room. The temperatures were dropping quickly, and drafts slipped in around the cottage windows.

Hermione sank into the chair before her parchment, trying to focus. “All right. Tell me. What’s Marcus Flint’s—” She grimaced. “ _Type?_ ”

Draco lifted his shoulders. “What you’d expect,” he said. “Cultured. Aloof, but flattering. Subtle and restrained. Intelligent, with lots of opinions, but wouldn’t say any of them in public. Alluring. Has strong drinks, but not many. You should drink Firewhisky with Madagascan Glassapple, he’d love that.” He hesitated. “Beautiful,” he said. “Poised.”

“So, imaginary,” Hermione said.

Draco’s lips pulled. Not quite a smile.

Hermione felt a rush of frustration. How could he look so collected? After this morning, after this entire week, how could he sit there at the end of the table and look only a bit on his guard? She felt so messy in comparison, so confused.

“Here,” he said after a moment, levitating an empty Firewhisky glass from a nearby shelf. It landed gently in front of her with a _clink_.

“What’s this?” she said.

“Practice.” Draco rose to his feet. “You’re at the bar. I’m Flint.”

“Oh. I …” She wanted to protest, but … _four evenings_ with Flint. That could be ten hours of interaction she had to fake her way through. She wouldn’t be Transfigured or Polyjuiced. She always felt free when transformed into someone else, but with her own voice and body—even if her face was unrecognizably made up—it would feel different.

This was a logistical exercise, that was all. It would be useful.

“Fine.” She pushed away her parchment and put her shoulders back, trying to channel _cultured and aloof_ , as Draco approached. He pulled out the chair beside her.

“No,” he said before even beginning to sit.

“What?” she said as he retreated to his starting position. “What could I possibly have done wrong in point four milliseconds?”

“You looked over like you were waiting for me to sit. You can’t look interested.”

“You said he liked to be flattered.”

“Yeah,” Draco said, “but if you look eager, that’s not flattering. It’s only flattering if you seem unattainable and _then_ you give him your attention, because then your attention’s worth something, see?”

“Slytherins,” she muttered.

And this time he did smile, a small smile that made her look away with a painful squeeze. She pulled her parchment toward herself, made a quick, useless note, and pushed it away again.

This time she kept her eyes fixed on the glass, running her fingertip around its rim, as Draco slipped into the seat next to her.

“Evening,” he said, his voice soft and smooth. “What are you drinking?”

Hermione began to turn toward him.

“Slowly,” Draco murmured.

Her head froze mid-turn, and she took a deep breath, then began to move again, lazier, more languid, until finally she was facing Draco.

She’d been so focused on the glass that she hadn’t realised how closely the chairs were placed, or that he’d angled his toward her. He was hardly a foot away. Her gaze slipped immediately to his cheek, then to his arms, which were folded on the table, his dark jumper pushed to his elbows. His hands were long and slender.

This did not feel like a logistical exercise.

She didn’t realise her face was flooded with heat until he said, “I’m going to hope Leo Clifton can cover that up.”

“I won’t be blushing tomorrow,” she said defensively, without thinking.

He hesitated. “Why not?”

_Because it won’t be this._

“Because,” she said, her throat tight, “it’s—it’s just innately silly, pretending.”

“Well, that just seems like a lack of imagination.”

“This isn’t meant for imagination. It’s meant for preparation.”

After a long moment he said, “I suppose.”

In the short pause, though, she did find herself imagining. She pictured herself at a dimly lit bar made from dark, glossy wood, votive candles flickering at intervals, a tall slender cocktail in front of her, Draco’s stool turned toward hers. Looking at her the way he had in Kensington, from the other side of the booth, like if she looked away he would drown.

“Again,” he said, startling the image out of her head. “What are you drinking?”

She tried to think herself back into character. “Firewhisky and Madagascan Glassapple. What about y—?”

“Still too eager. Don’t ask him questions yet. He’ll want to lead.”

“Fine. Lead, then.”

A tinge of color appeared in Draco’s cheeks. “Haven’t seen you here before.”

“You wouldn’t have. I’ve only just moved—I graduated from the Multinational Wizards’ Academy in Dubai a few years ago.”

“Interesting time to come to Britain.”

“Yes. The rising philosophy here suits my family’s values.”

A long pause. Draco looked down at his own face in the polished wood of the table. Then, carefully, he said, “If you say something like that, you’ll need to be ready for the sort of things he’ll say. Because he’ll expect you to say them back.”

“You mean about Muggles. And Muggle-borns.”

Draco nodded.

“It’s fine,” Hermione said. “I did it as Mrs. Parkinson. It’s … if I have to.”

A thick silence filled the room. Hermione could have scooped it out of the air by the palmful.

Then the words were bursting out of her, unable to repress:

“You don’t say those things anymore.”

Draco grew very still.

“You don’t talk the way you used to talk,” she rushed on. “And—and this morning. You came into London, you were surrounded by Muggles, you _talked_ to Muggles, and you went there with me and Harry. You asked about things. You didn’t say a word about … anything.”

Draco was still regarding himself in the table’s surface. He had never looked more like a statue than in that moment, face of alabaster, impenetrable. It was almost a shock when he reanimated, turned to face her. He looked like he might choke if he tried to speak.

Hermione heard the invitation in the silence. She could keep asking, keep pushing, where once he would have deflected.

Or she could run. She could stand up, flee the questions and the possibilities, flee from him.

She didn’t move.

“Does it mean something,” she managed to say, “that you’re doing these things?”

“Yes,” he said almost at once, as if he’d been waiting, hoping, for her to ask.

Hermione’s mouth was as dry as parchment. Something cold was flooding through her. Was it hope? Disbelief? Longing? A stronger fear than ever?

And maybe he could see her fear, because the intensity of his expression lessened. There was wariness there, but softness now, too. She knew that look. Halloween.

“That _is_ what was this week was about, then,” he said.

Words trembled on the tip of Hermione’s tongue. All week she’d kept them inside, trying to wall herself off, remove herself, keep herself safe.

But she didn’t know how. Her entire life it had been this way. Once she cared, she couldn’t make it stop. She was wholehearted; she was her whole heart.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m trying to be sensible. Because I can’t be sure that you won’t … that you’re not going to …” She heard herself rushing, tripping, but she couldn’t slow down. “I mean, be realistic. _I’m_ being realistic. You of all people should understand that I have to think about myself, and given our history—for years … given everything, I felt I was being too … too …”

His expression had stiffened. “Too lenient,” he said. “About my past.”

“No. Too optimistic about right now.”

The words were painful to say. His actions of the last few months, of the last week, of today, hadn’t been those of someone who would hurt her. Hermione wanted to believe that.

But she’d been wrong before.

“I’m scared,” she whispered.

Draco looked as if a heavy weight had settled onto him, something unfamiliar, between pain and humiliation. It was a long moment before she recognised the look as shame.

His voice unsteady, he said, “I know.”

There was a long, still silence. He watched her like someone awaiting a verdict.

“Do I need to be scared?” she asked.

She could see his pulse going in his throat, hard and quick. When he spoke, his voice was very hoarse. “No.”

Hermione searched his face and saw almost instantaneous hints of uncertainty, of intent, each there and gone at once.

Then he lifted his hand to her cheek, and her mind went blank.

He touched the spot where she’d touched him on Halloween. For a moment his fingertips just rested there, and now, if anything, he looked afraid. Like she might vanish under his hand. Hermione felt like she’d forgotten how to breathe.

Slowly, haltingly, she tilted her face up toward him so that his palm pressed to her cheek. She remembered tipping into the night at the end of July, a thousand feet above the Earth’s dark face. It was the same feeling here, absolutely still, in a silent dining room. Freefall.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers.

The silence rang around them like vibration. For an instant neither moved, held in the cold shock of contact. Then Hermione leaned slowly into him. His lips parted. His hand slid into her hair, warmer than she’d dreamed it, and rougher. Of course his palms would be callused from the friction of a broom handle. But the kiss was frictionless, as easy as breathing. The tip of his nose pressed into her cheek, and his mouth shifted against hers, slipping, then closing upon her lower lip, soft and sure. She was shivery, suddenly overwarm. She drew a shaky breath through her nose and caught some clean, vague, anonymous scent. She wanted to move close enough to know it.

Draco reached forward with his other hand at the same time she did, and their wrists knocked clumsily in midair, and Hermione smiled, and felt him smiling unevenly back into the kiss, and they broke for an instant, letting out small, nervous laughs, and she couldn’t believe this was happening, after this week—she couldn’t believe how her heart was pounding, how badly she wanted to keep kissing him.

His hand found her waist, and hers the back of his neck, and their lips met again, this time less graceful, more forceful. He took her lip between his teeth, his hand tightening in her hair. Hermione felt something building like a shout in the center of her chest, like magma surging through the heart of a volcano, currents sunk deep in the ocean, everything buried and full of motion. She needed to put it somewhere. She grasped the front of his jumper and pulled, and he made a low sound and stood, taking her to her feet, the collision of their chairs shockingly loud in the whispery soundscape of unsteady breath and the contact of their skin. One of his fingernails scraped against her scalp. His other hand splayed across her back. They stepped clumsily to the wall, and he pressed her slowly against it. His hands came to her face, pushing her hair back as she stood tiptoed, her fists wound into the back of his jumper, holding him into her.

He broke the kiss, still close, his breath whispering over her cheek. Hermione’s eyes eased open, and she looked into his with a humming blankness in her mind. The short fine lashes, nearly translucent. The gaze, so often casual or careless, now riveted on her with something raw and open, almost too personal to see. His hair had fallen over his high forehead; his mouth was kiss-swollen and looked sensitive. Her heartbeat struck and struck and struck like a clock stuck on the hour. She was sure he could feel it, his thumb resting upon the pulse point in her throat.

He closed his eyes and leaned forward until his forehead rested gently against hers, breathing hard, and one of the breaths was her name, only half-formed and hardly a whisper, ghosted over her lips like a breeze, spilt out of him like he didn’t know what he was doing. She thought maybe he hadn’t even known he’d said it.

Hermione realised how wrung-out she felt, as if she could have laid her head upon his shoulder and fallen asleep. The week had been like a typhoon. Here was its eye. She closed her eyes too and lifted her chin, just barely, until their lips touched again. Light and warm like rain in sun. She couldn’t think enough to do more. Inside her was a disbelief like helium, and she was falling slowly upward, dizzied, lifted toward something as unfathomable as the sky. She let the kiss disengage, but then Draco kissed her in exactly the same way, placing his lips gently upon hers for just a moment, like he wanted to tell her, _I know—I know—I feel it too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i tried deleting the previous chapter sixteen in order for this one to send an update, but if that did not happen, sorry!! alas, some people commented on the previous chapter sixteen and those comments disappeared :( your lovely words live on in my heart.
> 
> thanks for reading as always, and sending my love <3
> 
> [come tumbl with me :)](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	17. The First Annual Christmas Gala for the Celebration of Magical Unity

“So,” said Harry, as Leo Clifton led Hermione into the back room.

Draco practically jumped. He’d been watching Hermione smiling at Clifton, making polite conversation, the way her profile caught the bright lights of the studio.

Now he looked over at Potter, who was leaning on one of the displays of brushes and powders.

“So … what?” Draco said.

Potter raised his eyebrows. “So, you two have made up, have you?”

Draco looked away, cheeks warm, back at a poster of a giant alligator. “I suppose you noticed she was speaking to me in full sentences again. That Seeker’s eye doesn’t miss a thing, does it?”

“I noticed more than that,” Potter muttered.

Draco stole a mortified glance back at Potter, who’d also gone rather red now. Why had he brought it up if it was just going to embarrass them both? For Merlin’s sake.

Of course, Draco supposed, it would have been hard to miss the way he and Hermione had looked at breakfast. She’d come in to find him making breakfast before Harry had woken up. Fifteen minutes later, everything had been mysteriously burnt.

“I can’t take anything you say seriously,” Draco said, “when you look like that.”

“Oh, like you look any better?” Potter said.

As one, they glanced into the mirror behind the counter and snorted. Draco wouldn’t have recognised himself if he’d seen the face in a picture. In the end, Clifton had opted for a wig rather than dye to achieve the proper texture: a nest of black curls like a thunderstorm, which matched the facial hair that had been glued and gummed to the lower half of his face. Using cold, slimy putty and rubber fixtures, he’d given Draco a snub nose and full cheeks, then swabbed his eyebrows with black paint.

“You look like a sea captain,” Potter chortled.

“ _You_ look like a Viking,” said Draco. Potter’s shiny bald head glinted in the studio lights, and the film that Clifton had applied to both their faces aged Potter to his late thirties at least, several prominent wrinkles in his brow, deep crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes. Potter, too, had a beard; his was shaggy and dark blond, ending in a small braid.

Clifton had also, to Draco’s horror, applied something to their eyeballs called ‘contact lenses.’ Draco would happily have gone his whole life without reliving the process, but he had to admit they were effective. Potter’s eyes were now as dark as Snape’s, and Draco’s were a vivid blue.

“Let’s get some lunch,” Potter suggested, checking his watch. “He said it’d take an hour or two to get through her hair.”

Draco agreed, and they went for curry in a nearby Indian shop that was ten degrees too warm. Draco asked occasional questions about the paintings on the wall, and the various machines the Muggles were using, which Potter answered without laughing. Mostly.

Muggle London felt a bit less overwhelming today, but maybe that was because Draco was so distracted. Every few seconds, mid-conversation, even mid-sentence, he’d think of Hermione and what they were doing, what they’d chosen to do. What he’d chosen. He thought of the way she tasted, like mild lip balm and something salty, and the way she’d looked at him that morning—like the sight of him made her happy, nervous, excited. It all washed over him again and again like an insistent tide.

His mind hadn’t fixated this way since … well, since he’d had to think about the Vanishing Cabinet every waking second. But those thoughts had been all terror and stress. He hadn’t known it was possible to be equally fixated on something that made him feel like _this_. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel this way at all. It wasn’t the smooth, smug satisfaction he’d felt in the days after he and Pansy had gotten together. When he thought about Hermione—when he thought of her melting into him in the dining room, the hesitance and then the heat, the way she’d angled him against the kitchen counter that morning—his heart seemed to stutter, and he felt disoriented, and then a delirious squeeze of disbelief followed, seeming to saturate everything around him with color.

He was preoccupied.

As it transpired, Clifton had underestimated the time required to tackle Hermione’s hair. It was four hours before he emerged, grinning sheepishly, an unrecognizable girl at his shoulder.

The hair was the first, most obvious change; it lay over Hermione’s shoulders as if Clifton had poured two bottles of Sleekeazy’s into it. But the rest of her face was just as bewilderingly foreign. He’d built out her jawline, and heightened her cheekbones, and given her an aquiline nose and arched brows. With red paint on her lips, she looked exactly as haughty as she needed to.

“Well?” Clifton said. “What do you think of the leading lady?”

Hermione looked at Draco with laughing eyes, bright green now. He found himself smiling nervously, compulsively, the uneven smile he’d found on his own lips in the mirror last night as he’d washed his face. He’d tried to shake it away, to repress it, but it was something he couldn’t control.

Potter let out a laugh. “It’s brilliant, Leo.”

“Take care of that wig, Stan,” Clifton called after them as they left.

Soon it was half-four, and they had reached the peacock-blue door painted onto a brick wall that was the entrance to Circe & Clíodhna. Draco had heard a lot about the place, but had never actually been inside. He stepped directly through the wall, to the seeming unconcern of the passing Muggles, into the bar.

It was a long, dark, low-ceilinged lounge, its elegant walnut counter lined with brass trimmings. The only lamps were blue and indigo, giving the few people inside a ghostly cast. Glowing glass shelves hovered behind the bar, bearing liquor bottles of a hundred colors, and booths were tucked against the walls, divided by velvet curtains for privacy.

Hermione, who had entered before Draco and Harry, was already sitting at the end of the bar. Draco tried and failed not to look at her. She was toying with her hair interestedly, examining its new texture. The sultry blue light glossed the slope of the back of her neck, and his fingertips tingled with sense memory—the feeling of running his hand up into her hair. There was that disbelief again, making him feel as if he were hovering an inch or two off the black oak floor.

Potter ordered drinks, and they situated themselves in a booth in the back corner, which offered a good vantage of the rest of the bar. Half an hour later, a shaft of light widened across the room as the door opened, admitting five—ten—twenty people in Ministry uniforms, all laughing and chatting.

Draco saw him almost at once, blunt-jawed and half a head taller than the rest, with hair as flat-topped as a well-kept hedge. Marcus Flint, talking to a witch with dark red curls.

“There,” he muttered across the table to Potter. “Now.”

Potter stood, slid out of the booth, and made for the door, muttering apologies and excuse-mes as he slid through the crowd. As Potter passed Flint, Draco saw him grasp his wand in his sleeve and turn it subtly toward Flint, who hesitated on the spot, looking dazed. Draco grimaced into his gillywater and lime, hoping Potter hadn’t overdone it. The Confundus was a delicate spell at the best of times, flexible enough to plant ideas or to wipe a mind temporarily blank. It was easy to overwork, and the last thing they needed was Flint’s associates wondering why he’d suddenly started drooling onto the table.

After a moment, though, Flint’s haze cleared. He slid into the booth with the other Ministry workers, but his eyes were now fixed at the end of the bar, on Hermione. Her hand was resting on the stem of a delicate glass filled with lavender liquid that occasionally spat violet sparks. Firewhisky and Madagascan Glassapple. The lure.

Not even ten minutes later, Flint approached her.

Draco tried not to watch it play out. He tried to act normal, to keep up with the small talk Potter was offering across the table. But his eyes kept straying. He could make out the low, breathy affect Hermione had given to her voice, and soon Flint was sitting next to her, unable to take his eyes off her.

Draco couldn’t help noticing that Flint was more muscular than he was, and several inches taller. He noticed, too, that Hermione’s body was inclined almost imperceptibly toward him.

Draco felt a hard, unexpected stab of jealousy.

He frowned down at his gillywater and lime, taken aback. He’d never been a jealous person before. Pansy had flirted with other boys all the time, especially Blaise, toying at making him jealous, but he’d always been so certain of her affection that it had wound up being like a joke between them.

But Hermione … she’d loathed him for six years. It struck Draco all over again how unlikely this was, even perilous. The last person she’d had feelings for had been _Ron Weasley,_ for Merlin’s sake—and the things that had once given Draco such confidence, his family and his status and his wealth, had dissolved. He was alone, adrift, supposedly dead. What did he have to offer anymore?

The jealousy gave way to worry, frustration, even embarrassment. Draco could half-see his unrecognizable face in the black glass table. He looked so ridiculous in his disguise, his forty-year-old sea captain disguise. He wanted to be himself. He wanted Hermione to be herself. He wanted to imagine them all the way out of the confines of what they were doing, out of their plots and risks and careful infiltration, into a world where he could walk up to Flint right now and say, _I believe you’re sitting in my seat._

He squeezed his lime wedge into the dregs of the gillywater, which hissed and spat and swirled like a miniature storm.

After what had probably been an hour, although it felt like a year to Draco, Hermione threw back her head and let out a cool laugh. His cue.

Draco stood with relief, approached the bar with their empties in hand, and after sliding them onto the walnut wood, let his wand slip into his grip. He let another _Confundus_ hit Flint’s broad back, then waited at the bar, listening.

“You know,” said Flint, “the Ministry’s holding an event next month. I think I’d like it if you came.”

* * *

“I got some useful information out of him,” Hermione called out from the bathroom. They were back at headquarters, and Draco was sitting with Potter in the cottage’s front room, both their faces raw and tender from peeling off the false beards. They were stewing some Murtlap Essence in a small cauldron to apply to the irritation.

“Such as?” Draco called back.

“The restrictions on Diagon Alley have been lifted, for one thing. They think they’ve registered a critical mass of the population now.”

“That’s great news,” Potter exclaimed, levitating the Murtlap out of the cauldron into two small bowls. “You can go to Madam Malkin’s and get dress robes for the gala anytime. We won’t have to bother with the paper falsification, and that’s one less visit to Leo to pay for.” Potter grimaced. “Maybe we won’t bankrupt your parents after all.”

“Exactly,” Hermione said with a guilty smile, emerging fresh-faced from the bathroom, her hands filled with the bits of rubber that had, until recently, been her disguise. With her face back to normal, with her hair this way, she looked nearly the way Draco remembered her at the Yule Ball.

“And thank goodness, too,” she went on, plopping down on the sofa, “because Flint’s asked me to dinner at a restaurant in Diagon Alley next Friday.”

“Where?” Draco asked.

“It’s called Erialo. I’d never heard of it, but—”

Draco spilled some of the Murtlap on the rug. “ _Erialo?_ ”

“Yes, why? Is it nice?”

“You could say that,” Draco muttered, flicking his wand to Vanish the spill, trying not to picture Flint and Hermione leaning across a table in a candlelit corner. “My parents got engaged there. It’s the most expensive restaurant in Diagon Alley. Flint must know someone on staff—you’ve usually got to book two months ahead of schedule.”

“Well done, Hermione,” said Harry, looking impressed. “He must really fancy you already.”

She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “It wasn’t exactly difficult. I just agreed with him about everything and acted like I’d never been more interested in anything than the flying formations of the Wimbourne Wasps in 1985. I didn’t even have to use five percent of what I’d prepared for my cover story.”

Draco continued applying the Murtlap to his cheek, feeling a bit too relieved that Marcus Flint hadn’t suddenly transformed into a brilliant conversationalist.

They spent an hour discussing the possibilities of the dinner, until the redness had faded from Draco’s and Harry’s faces. When Potter went to bed, there was a brief silence. Draco gave Hermione a furtive look from his armchair, feeling oddly uncertain. The morning, and kissing her in the kitchen, felt a long time ago. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d leaned toward Flint.

 _She thinks he’s boring,_ he reminded himself. _She was just acting._

“I liked the drink,” Hermione offered, breaking the silence.

“The Glassapple?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm. Maybe you really are the woman of Marcus Flint’s dreams.”

He wanted her to grimace. He wanted her to say, _God, I hope not._

Instead she laughed and said, “Well, at least he’s not so mean-looking anymore. He used to have that _scowl_ on all the time … but when he’s not looking at you like he wants to wring your neck, it’s not so bad.”

Draco didn’t know what he was supposed to say to this. He felt even more stiff and uncomfortable. Did Hermione expect him to agree? Why was she talking about the upsides of spending an evening flirting with Marcus Flint?

“Oh, really?” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Shall we start planning your engagement?”

Hermione looked over at him with surprise, and after a moment, disbelief passed over her expression. “Draco,” she said.

“What?”

“Are you—” She laughed. “Are you _jealous?_ ”

“No,” he said. Even to his own ear it was stoutly unconvincing.

Hermione looked bewildered, but pleased, too. “We need him to get to the Horcrux. That’s the only point of this.”

“I know that,” he muttered. “It’s just—he can … can buy you a drink.”

Hermione’s amusement faded into thoughtfulness.

“I liked the bar,” she said after a moment. “I kept thinking … well, that it would be a nice place to go.” She fiddled with a lock of her hair. “You know. Together. If, after … or if none of this were …” She paused, then shook her head. “I’m being silly.”

“No,” he said at once. “No, I was thinking that, too. That’s what I meant.”

Hermione smiled, and she was looking at him warm and steady, and Draco felt less uncertain.

“The atmosphere was nearly what I was picturing yesterday,” she said. “In the dining room.”

Draco propped one elbow on the chair’s arm, rested his chin on the heel of his palm. “Really,” he said with a lazy smile. “I thought that was supposed to be for ‘preparation, not imagination’.”

She smiled back. “It was. Apparently we’re just not very good at following clear directives.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m great at following directives.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah.”

Hermione let one hand fall to the sofa cushion beside her. “Then—sit here.” The words might have sounded bossy, except for her slight hesitation.

Draco did as he was told. He rose and approached her, intensely attuned to the way her eyes followed him, then settled on the sofa next to her, close enough that their thighs brushed. “And?” he said.

“And stay there.” She leaned toward him like a sapling in wind, and he expected her to kiss him, but instead her head sank against his shoulder, and she curled up against his side. There was that stutter in Draco’s chest again. He found himself thinking about the way she fit against him, neatly, like a puzzle piece. She was warm, her nose still pink from where the prosthetic had peeled off. Draco’s hand settled on her shoulder, hesitant at first, then more securely. His thumb brushed circles over her shoulder, down to her upper arm.

“These are pretty easy directives,” he said.

“True.” She yawned. “I suppose I’m tired of things being hard.”

“Yeah,” said Draco. “Me too.”

* * *

November ended with the season’s first flurry of snow, and with a positive outlook for the plan. Hermione went to dinner with Flint, which was deeply boring but technically successful, and Draco and Harry were both hired on by Lizzie Spizzworth, a tiny, excitable woman who enthused over their Anti-Spilling Spells.

“So proficient!” she exclaimed. “As if you spent your days doing nothing else!” Which, for the week leading up to their interviews, had been true.

Hermione was still nervous. She worried that Harry would say something about what was happening between her and Draco, that he might try to intervene. She even worried that Ron would suddenly reappear just now, at the moment with the most potential to injure him. She still felt guilty about Ron, sometimes.

But mostly she felt a quiet, disbelieving giddiness that she wished she could bottle and drink. Sometimes it made her want to laugh. Draco. _Draco Malfoy_ was the person making her feel this way, the one who turned immediately when she entered a room and got that breathless, alert look about him, the one who engaged when she was rattling off ideas about chained charms, the one who could, with a brush of his hand against her thigh during dinner and a tentative glance, make her heart race.

They stayed up late every night in the front room, talking about international Wizarding politics and Muggle politics alike. At first he mostly listened to the latter. Then he started asking questions; then, eventually, he would make comments—that certain cities sounded interesting, or similar to Wizarding locations and customs. He asked about her family, every obscure cousin she had, and their jobs and their lives and their children, and she described details of her childhood, and at one in the morning they’d have sunk so far down on the sofa that they were lying parallel, and they’d fall together effortlessly, kissing silently, dreamily.

She became familiar with the look he wore after they’d just kissed for a long time, that glittering look, satiated but never fully satisfied. To everything she did, he’d react: if she brushed her hand against his waist, he’d mirror it, tracing his thumb over her hip; if she smiled into a kiss, he’d cup the back of her neck and pull her closer. He noticed everything, he was studious, he was both attentive and intuitive to a degree that made Hermione feel like she’d stepped into a spotlight for the first time in her life.

She was trying to have some self-control about the whole thing, but it was difficult, when she wanted him, and he showed her he wanted her, too—kissing her whenever they were alone, on the forehead or the cheek or the side of her neck, absentmindedly touching her shoulder when he passed her in the kitchen. During the day they’d make up stupid excuses to pull each other into side rooms, or outside, where their breath would rise around them as they kissed, where she’d stand on tiptoe and kiss him against the side of the cottage, and brush specks of whitewash out of his hair.

And there was this way he’d begun to smile sometimes, a kind of smile she’d never seen on his face before—like his expression had slipped completely out of his control. Usually when they were joking back and forth, it would happen. He’d lose his composure. It made him look different. A bit older, maybe.

At 10:45 p.m. on December 1st, they prepared to Apparate to Lillimont Lake. Harry had been unable to stop talking about it all day, wondering how many Order members would come, if, perhaps, the person who’d sent the silver doe would show themselves.

It was five to eleven when they emerged, breathing hard, from the darkness into the icy cold.

There was a single silhouette at the edge of the lake. The second they appeared, it spun, wand at the ready.

There was a short gasp. Then, with a trembling hand, Minerva McGonagall lifted the hood of her cloak. She was pale with shock.

“Professor McGonagall!” Harry burst out. As they hurried to her side, Hermione’s heart pounded. It felt so strange to see the Transfiguration professor here, in the middle of the woods, not having seen a single member of the Order for months.

“Potter …” McGonagall whispered. “Granger? I …” She flinched as Draco stepped out from under the Invisibility Cloak, and stared at him for a long time with obvious disbelief. “Mr. Malfoy,” she said weakly. “I don’t …”

“Is anyone else coming?” said Harry eagerly.

Professor McGonagall pulled herself together. “I received a message with the time and place of this meeting. It wasn’t you who sent it?”

“A message?” Hermione said, frowning. “Isn’t the mail at Hogwarts being checked?”

“It didn’t come by owl, Ms. Granger. It was sent by Floo into my office.”

“That fits,” Harry said, exchanging an excited look with Hermione. “Professor, we think someone at the Ministry has been secretly helping us. If they had access to an unmonitored Floo line, that makes sense. They have a doe Patronus, that’s all we know. Can you think of anyone it might be?”

McGonagall’s lips thinned as she thought. “I’m afraid not, Potter,” she said eventually. “You’re sure it was a doe? Not a goat, perhaps?”

“Definitely not a goat,” said Harry, disappointed. “Well, keep an eye out.”

“Of course. … But how—where have you _been_ , Mr. Potter? The entire country—”

“Here,” said Harry, pressing the slip of parchment with Ron’s writing into her hand. “Read this.”

She scanned the parchment, and her eyes widened.

“Hermione cast a Fidelius Charm,” said Harry with pride, taking the parchment back.

McGonagall looked disoriented. “But what have the three of you been doing? Where is Mr. Weasley?” She made a sharp motion toward the parchment. “I trust I recognise his handwriting after six years of his essays.”

“He was with us,” Hermione said in a small voice. “You’re right—he’s Secret-Keeper. But …” A lump rose in her throat. “We haven’t seen him in a month and a half. You don’t know if he’s at the Burrow, do you?”

McGonagall’s face sank with consternation. “I’m afraid I have no idea.”

There was a pause. Then Harry said, “As for what we’ve been doing, we’ve been working on something. It’s important. … Something Professor Dumbledore told us to do.”

McGonagall’s eyes widened. When she spoke, she sounded breathless. “Albus left you a mission, Potter?”

He nodded.

“And you require assistance? That’s why you’ve called this meeting?”

“Well … no,” Harry admitted. “Not exactly. But we need to know everything that’s been going on. We haven’t been able to get in touch with anybody. … We’ve been stealing papers, but what’s going on with the rest of the Order? What’s going on at Hogwarts? Is—” His voice faltered. “Is everyone all right?”

Hermione saw the keen look in his eye and knew he was thinking of Ginny.

Hermione cast _Muffliato,_ and McGonagall cast several Warming Charms. They sat on boulders near the edges of Lake Lillimont to talk, and to wait, in case anyone else arrived.

“Do you think the Weasleys might come?” Harry said hopefully, looking around the lake.

“I would very much doubt it,” McGonagall said with a sigh. “The world outside Hogwarts has been effectively cut off from the world within, but the Carrows have made threats to Ginny Weasley that suggest the family is being constantly monitored. An Apparition from the Burrow in the middle of the night would be highly suspect, grounds for interrogation. … Hagrid informed me that he received a similar message, but Hagrid is unable to Apparate, and we felt it was too risky to have two teachers away from the school, lest our _dear_ new Headmaster notice.” Disgust tinged her tone.

“What’s Snape doing?” said Draco, addressing McGonagall for the first time.

Professor McGonagall turned that piercing stare onto Draco. Hermione could see him stiffening beneath it, could see his defenses rising, as if he were a feral animal approached by a predator.

“He is changing Hogwarts to meet the wishes of his master,” she said eventually. “We teachers still stand in opposition to the regime. As best we can, we try to bypass Snape, Filch, and the Carrows. … They’ve begun to use corporal punishment and outright torture for students who demonstrate disloyalty to You-Know-Who.”

Her thin brows drew together, but a satisfied glint was in her eye. “They have also tried to recruit students to do their dirty work for them. However … to my surprise, I will admit … even students of their own house have made _that_ particular tactic difficult.”

Hermione glanced at Draco. He looked even paler than usual; she could just see the worry in the compression of his lips.

“Professor,” Hermione said, “in September, when we were … well, pursuing this mission of ours, Draco and I wound up at the Ministry …”

She related their narrow escape, disguised as the Parkinsons. Professor McGonagall listened with her hands fastened over her knees; by the end, her knuckles were white.

“Yes,” she said, her voice thin. “Yes, we all heard about that. It caused quite a stir at Hogwarts—although the students assumed, naturally, that Mr. Potter was your partner-in-crime.” She sighed. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of this news, Ms. Granger, Mr. Malfoy. … But Ms. Parkinson’s parents were taken for questioning about the event. They have been in Azkaban ever since.”

Hermione’s heart dropped. Draco had gone rigid on the boulder beside her. Hermione wanted to take his hand and squeeze it; as it was, she whispered the question she knew he couldn’t manage:

“And Pansy? Her brothers?”

“Her brothers, as I understand it, were placed in the care of a great-uncle. Ms. Parkinson herself …” Now, to Hermione’s surprise, a note of something like admiration crept into Professor McGonagall’s steely voice. “Ms. Parkinson has become … unruly.”

“Unruly?” Harry repeated.

“Yes. The Malfoys’ supposed deaths, and now her parents’ imprisonment on Death Eater orders, have affected her greatly. I believe she told the Carrows, if I am remembering the phrase correctly, that she would perform the Cruciatus on their instructions ‘when the Dark Lord flapped into Hogwarts and made her’.”

Hermione let out a choked sound halfway between laughter and incredulity. Harry’s mouth was hanging open.

But Draco made no reaction. His face was stricken, immobile. McGonagall was watching his reaction like a hawk.

“Your friend Mr. Goyle,” she went on, “then refused to discipline Ms. Parkinson, earning them both a substantial punishment. I kept them back after their next Transfiguration lesson to give them advice on reducing the aftereffects—and to let them know that I, and the other teachers, stood behind them.”

Draco finally found his voice. “Stood behind them?” he said, his voice hoarse. “ _Stood behind—_ can’t you do anything else? You can’t _stop_ the Carrows, or—?”

McGonagall gave him a pitying look. “Mr. Malfoy, if a teacher contradicted You-Know-Who’s servants, what do you think would happen? Would you rather have Fenrir Greyback or Bellatrix Lestrange teaching your friends Transfiguration? I will not have myself removed from Hogwarts. … But I have told Ms. Parkinson and Mr. Goyle that if they need an outlet for insubordination, let it be my class instead.”

Hermione stared at the elderly witch, as rigid as she had always been, seated on the boulder with her bun drawn back tight. The idea of Minerva McGonagall inviting insubordination from Slytherins in her class was as disorienting as anything they’d heard in months.

McGonagall paused, studying Draco intently. “I have since heard from Madam Pomfrey that a number of younger Slytherins have begun to follow your friends’ example. Some, of course, have fallen in line with the Dark Lord’s wishes. Others … well.” She adjusted her spectacles. “Slytherin House appears to be confronting deep divides within itself, Mr. Malfoy. It is a time to find where our loyalties lie.”

She said the last sentence with particular stress. Draco looked away, discomfort in his expression.

Hermione frowned, uncomprehending. What did he have to be uncomfortable about? Pansy may have stood up to the Carrows, but Draco had done ten times more in hunting the Horcruxes. And now he wasn’t even taking credit for what he’d done?

 _It’s not like_ _him_ , Hermione thought. It wasn’t like him not to advocate for himself.

She found herself blurting out, “We couldn’t have gotten this far without Draco’s help.”

Professor McGonagall turned a surprised gaze on her. Draco’s eyes flicked onto her, too, guarded.

“That is—” Hermione swallowed. “He’s … he’s been helping us with what Dumbledore’s left us to do. I would have died in the Ministry if he hadn’t been there. His loyalties _are_ with us.”

 _With me,_ she found herself thinking.

For the first time, McGonagall’s expression seemed to soften. She looked back to Draco. “I’m glad to hear it, Mr. Malfoy.”

His grey eyes flicked up to her, and he nodded once, still wordless.

Professor McGonagall checked a silver wristwatch. “I should return to the school,” she said, rising from her boulder. “At the moment, I am supposedly having a nightcap at the Hog’s Head … Aberforth is covering for me, but I should still—”

 _“Aberforth?_ ” Harry blurted. “Aberforth _Dumbledore?_ ”

“Yes,” said McGonagall bemused. “Why?”

“He lives in Hogsmeade? He’s—he’s in touch with the Order?”

“The barman,” Hermione exclaimed. “I knew he looked related to Dumbledore when we were there for the funeral!”

Harry was on his feet now. “That’s who’s been in the mirror,” he breathed, staring out at the lake.

They all just looked at him, uncomprehending. He looked back at them, eyes refocusing.

“I have a fragment of a two-way mirror,” he said. “Sirius gave it to me, and I could have _sworn_ I’d seen Dumbledore’s eye in it over the summer. It must have been Aberforth. He must have the other one! Which means we can communicate with him!”

McGonagall, rather than growing excited, was watching Harry with a kind of sadness. “I’m afraid there isn’t much to communicate, Potter. With the Order scattered this way … Hestia Jones and Dedalus Diggle disappeared shortly after a check-in on your aunt, uncle, and cousin. We’ve had no word from Kingsley, Remus, or Tonks, and if the Weasleys make any act of opposition …” She shook her head.

“No,” Harry said fiercely. “It’s not over, Professor. We’re _here_ , aren’t we? We have a new headquarters, a safe place. You can get word to Hagrid, and we can let him in, too. We can get in touch with Aberforth. We can start pulling together again.” He held up the piece of paper. “If anything happens, and you’re in danger, come here, all right? If you hear anything new about Vo—about You-Know-Who, or about the Death Eaters’ movements, come and find us. And when you can find a time to sneak Hagrid away, to let him know, too—”

“Come and find you,” Professor McGonagall said. “I get the idea, Potter.” But she sounded affectionate rather than brisk.

For a moment they stood in silence, McGonagall regarding Harry with a wistful kind of pride. Hermione realised that her eyes had filled with tears. “It’s been years since I saw that address,” she said finally. “James and Lily would have been proud.”

Hermione looked at Harry, waiting for him to look bashful, or shaken. He didn’t. There was a steely resolution in his face, and Hermione felt, in that moment, as if she was seeing someone other than the boy she’d met that day on the Hogwarts Express in first year.

“I know,” Harry said.

* * *

“What was that?” Hermione asked Draco later that night, when they were up in front of the dying embers of the fire, his fingers loosely combing through her curls. “When McGonagall was talking about your loyalties.”

Draco’s hand stilled. “What do you mean?” he said.

She gave him a wry, unimpressed look. “You know exactly what I mean. Since when have you not been the first to defend yourself to everyone, all the time?”

Draco half smiled, but he couldn’t form a satisfactory answer. The truth was, he couldn’t pinpoint _why_ he’d kept quiet—why, if McGonagall wanted to insinuate that he still harbored Death Eater sympathies, he hadn’t just told her what he’d done since summer.

Maybe he felt like it wasn’t very convincing if it came from him, that if he listed the ways he’d gone against the Dark Lord in the past several months, someone need only list all the things he’d done last year as a rebuttal.

Or maybe it was his new inability to stop thinking _about_ those things he’d done at Hogwarts, and in his childhood. It had been happening more and more, the last week, as he settled more deeply into this new world—a world where he made conversation with Leo Clifton and stilted small talk with the Muggles at the registers in shops, where he asked questions about Hermione’s family more and more naturally, where Bella’s voice grew more distant every day.

When he wasn’t thinking about Hermione, and the blind rush of kissing her—when he wasn’t trying to make her smile—he thought about his younger self. He kept imagining that tiny eleven-year-old, walking through the halls and whispering to Crabbe and Goyle about whose families were blood traitors and Muggle-lovers, talking like he’d known anything about how the world worked. He knew McGonagall looked at him and saw that child. And maybe, in that moment beside the lake, he hadn’t wanted to speak up for that child.

But then again, maybe he just felt like he didn’t _need_ McGonagall to understand. What was her goodwill to him? Was he supposed to lay his mind bare to win the favour of someone whose opinion was only of passing importance to him?

In that moment, when McGonagall’s steely eyes had found his, probing, expectant, Draco had thought of Hermione instead, and everything she knew about the dark year, and his new thoughts. And he’d felt such a feeling of relief that _she_ knew him, that there was nothing to explain between the two of them. When she’d spoken up for him, he’d wanted to take her hand right there, in the moonlight.

Time seemed to accelerate as the Ministry gala approached. At first it seemed miles away. They had three entire weeks, and Draco and Harry brought home their uniforms for the gala, which Draco loathed; they were about as well-cut as potato sacks. They had so much time that they got distracted during planning and talked about everything McGonagall had told them instead, about Hogwarts.

Then there were two weeks until the gala, and Hermione had gone to Madam Malkin’s to order dress robes, and visited the Scavenger’s Guild to buy her and Harry new, unobtrusive wands, and Flint had put her name on the guest list. Draco’s thoughts about the new, grim Hogwarts began to take up less space in his mind. He began to think of how, in the not-so-distant future, he would walk up the sweeping steps of the manor and be _home_ again, and thoughts of his younger self began to take greater primacy. He felt like he was being followed around by ghosts of himself.

One snowy night in mid-December, McGonagall Apparated into the cottage’s front room, making them all shout with shock, and informed them that she would be able to bring Hagrid to Lillimont Lake by Side-Along Apparition over the Christmas holiday, so that he could read the precious slip of paper with Weasley’s words written on it. This buoyed Hermione and Harry’s spirits immensely.

That night, Hermione told Draco about how, in third year, when she and Weasley had been fighting nonstop, Hagrid had always been there to cheer and encourage her. And in the back of his mind, Draco saw himself lying in the Hospital Wing that year, embellishing his injury from that Hippogriff to get Hagrid fired, thinking it was so funny, and he felt that unease again, and a sinking feeling throughout his whole body, and he couldn’t meet Hermione’s eyes.

“What is it?” she said, lifting his chin with two fingers. “Where do you keep going these days?”

And the fact that she noticed, that she knew him so well as to spot even a moment’s disengagement, made something in Draco hum. “I’m right here, Granger,” he said, slipping his arm around her back and pulling her half-onto his lap. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

She smiled and kissed him. Kissed his forehead. “You’ll tell me eventually,” she said, toying idly with his hair, and he looked up into her face and said,

“Yeah, probably.”

Then the gala was a week away, and Hermione came back from Diagon Alley with a bag from Madam Malkin’s that she refused to let Draco look inside. There was no longer room to think about anything else but the gala. Every waking hour, they were reviewing all their contingency plans for every possible hiccup, every possible failure of every step in the plan, what to do if everything went wrong.

Even when he and Hermione were up late together, they couldn’t seem to speak of anything else than the gala, the manor. Some nights they didn’t speak at all. They just kissed, with increasing urgency, in front of the fire while the blue shadows of snow deepened outside, or in his room, sometimes laughing about the way the mattress creaked. And he’d hold her in the silence and feel something like panic spreading through him, thinking about how much danger they would soon be in. Were they really going to do this? Plunge themselves headfirst into the Ministry, surrounded by Aurors and Death Eaters and the entire Department of Magical Law Enforcement?

And then, suddenly, it was the morning of December 23rd, and Draco looked up from the armchair in the front room, wearing his black Spizzworth’s uniform, to see Hermione walking down the stairs in her dress robes. He’d slept poorly the night before, but all thoughts of tiredness and even nerves evaporated at the sight of her.

She was walking carefully on the creaky steps, because the crimson satin fell down to her feet, which were clad in glittering black shoes. These were not the charmingly juvenile dress robes they’d all worn at the Yule Ball in fourth year, looking like children raiding their parents’ formalwear. This was a gown fit for a society event, sleeveless and elegant, with an asymmetrical capelet that she unlaced and slid off her bare shoulders as she turned around the banister. Draco caught a glimpse of her back, the line of the robe dipping almost all the way to her waist, and realised his mouth had gone as dry as parchment.

Draco wished they had about six more hours before leaving, so that he could take in every element: the soft shimmering details at her hip, red thread embroidered sparingly upon red material; the delicate twin streamers of crimson fabric that laced up at her shoulders; the smoothness of the skin at the divot of her collarbones.

Hermione coaxed the volumes of her hair over one shoulder and stopped at the bottom of the steps. She glanced from Harry to Draco and smiled, though it was a hesitant smile. “Do I look all right?” she said. “I know he’s going to change my face, but …”

“It’s great, Hermione,” said Harry. “You really look the part.” He glanced over, but whatever he saw on Draco’s face made him look away again at once. “It’s almost time,” he said, checking his watch. “I’ll run upstairs and get the new wands, and then we’ll go see Leo. Yeah?”

“Sure,” Hermione said as he jogged up the steps.

The instant he was out of sight, the instant they were alone, Draco crossed the room in a half-dozen strides and pressed his lips to hers. A pleasurable little shudder went through her body that made Draco feel like he might actually go mad; his head was full of white lightning and his fingers slipped over her waist, over the smooth skin of her back, thrill after thrill shooting through him. There was nothing in his mind but how she felt, Hermione, how her hair sprang free of her fingertips and brushed the side of his face, how she let the capelet flutter out of her grip to take a fistful of his robes and tug him down into her.

Too soon, Potter’s footsteps sounded close above them again. They broke apart, both breathing hard. Draco wanted to say something. He wanted to tell her how she looked, but he felt somewhere beyond words. As she looked up into his eyes, another feeling seared through him, one he knew better than any other. Fear.

And he saw it mirrored in her face. She was afraid, too.

Draco wondered at that moment if he was a coward. He’d always put himself first, and he’d never thought that was a particular problem, or a particular indicator of cowardice. But maybe he _was_ a coward, because he thought about saying, _We don’t have to go._

It confused him. He felt as if he were backing down the path he’d begun to walk. Hadn’t he resolved months ago, in his recovery bed after the Ministry, to hunt the Horcruxes, to restore his life?

And yet … looking at Hermione, he felt a new, spiraling sense of dread of the possibilities. The idea of her being hurt suddenly seemed so _loud,_ so horribly present. He could be found out himself—he could be killed, just now, just when he was most of the way into a new world that he had barely begun to explore.

But if they just stayed at headquarters, he could change out of these ill-fitting robes, and they could have another night like Halloween, a dozen nights, a hundred; they could laugh and chat with Potter in the evenings, and pretend the world wasn’t disintegrating on their doorstep, and later, when he was alone with her, he could kiss her just there, on the blade of her shoulder, just where her hair tumbled down.

Draco thought he might have done it—delayed and delayed and delayed. Stayed safe.

But he knew she never would.

A painful lump in his throat, he stooped, swept the capelet off the floor and back into her hand, and retreated to a respectable distance as Potter jogged back into view.

Hermione tried to pretend nothing had happened, though there was a rosy glow in her cheeks, and she kept casting furtive looks his way. As Draco looked at her, running through details of the plan to Harry for a thousandth time, he tried to galvanise himself. He thought of the Horcrux shimmering around Dolores Umbridge’s neck. Three had been destroyed. If they hid here, they’d never find another, he knew that. And he remembered how she’d told him as he’d lain in bed, his shoulder pulsing with agony, _The cause is our lives_.

So he thought about Circe & Clíodhna, and Erialo, and events at his home. He pictured himself at Hermione’s side, out in a world that was safe … but the image seemed a thousand miles away, a photograph at the end of an eternal unlit hallway. And when Hermione looked at him and asked, “Ready?” he knew she didn’t believe the lie he told.

* * *

Standing at the manor gate, arm in arm with Marcus Flint, Hermione couldn’t believe she was actually here.

They’d queued for a quarter of an hour, talking about Flint’s week at work as dozens upon dozens of Ministry officials filed forward through the gates. Flint was dressed in dark green dress robes with silver clasps; every so often he looked down at her dress robes, his eyes fixed on her chest in a way that made her adjust her capelet with discomfort.

She thought of Draco, and his hand rough against her back, and the way he’d kissed her in the cottage with a kind of urgency he’d never had before—as if it were his last chance.

Her palms were clammy. She wiped them discreetly on her robes. _Don’t,_ she told herself. _Everything is going to go according to plan._

The sun had set hours before. The wrought-iron gates, which stood wide open, were wreathed with tiny golden lights. Malfoy Manor itself sat at the end of a long, hedge-lined drive, atop a hill. The sight was ethereal and undoubtedly beautiful, but a haze of foreboding hovered over the place, too. It was imposing rather than inviting.

“Marcus Flint,” said Flint, handing his invitation to a uniformed security witch at the gates. “And my guest, Marilea Linhardt.”

The security witch glanced over a list that hovered before her. She was burly and stony-faced, the letters _GG_ emblazoned on the breast of her uniform. Her wand was fastened into a wrist holster, one flick away from being ready to hex. Hermione glanced over the four others of the Greengrass Guard who stood at the gates, stiff and immobile, ready to react in an instant.

The new wand she’d bought at the Scavengers’ Guild weighed heavy in her pocket, her only protection should everything go wrong. There could be no concealed bag of tricks here. The guards were searching everything. Even now they were opening half a dozen bottles of mulled mead to inspect their contents, despite a mustached wizard’s furious protests.

The security witch returned Flint’s invitation and nodded them through. Hermione didn’t smile up at him; Marilea Linhardt did not show affection, only approval and disapproval.

“This place is one of the oldest Wizarding houses in the country,” Flint told her, taking her arm roughly and without question. He spoke with bravado, as if he’d put the manor together himself.

“You’ve been before?” Hermione said idly.

“Yeah. I used to know the family who lived here before the Lestranges.” Flint sounded, for the first time since he’d met her, a bit reluctant to speak. “They got mixed up in some … well, no one really knows the details.”

Hermione gave him a sidelong glance, a raised brow. “Friends of yours?”

Flint was quiet for a moment as they crunched over the gravel. The soft golden lights illuminated the fluttering feathers of several albino peacocks, which roamed up and down the hedges.

“Yeah,” he said. “And they were loyal to the end, mind,” he added quickly, looking down at her, as if needing to ensure she didn’t get the wrong idea. “They didn’t turn blood traitor when things got … but that was when Dumbledore was still alive, so, things were more dangerous then. No one could have known what might happen.” Flint seemed to have found his way out of the woods. He was nodding to himself now. “No one could have known,” he said again.

Malfoy Manor loomed overhead now, a façade of worn grey stone spread with tall French windows, every pane rippled with age. Its eaves were decorated with statuettes, dragons and chimaeras that seemed to gambol and play forty feet above, and the windows were all flooded with inviting light. Hermione’s sense of foreboding only increased. It was all she could do not to hold onto her wand in her pocket. She thought of Draco and Harry, who had come in with Lizzie Spizzworth’s hours earlier, who were now, hopefully, nestled in the heart of the manor.

She and Flint swept up the long stairs and into a marble foyer that sparkled with decorations. Real, never-melting icicles gleamed from the banisters, and fairies with delicate, gauzy wings fluttered over the lintels of the broad doorways. A towering Christmas tree twenty feet high reached up to kiss the lowest dangling point of a chandelier, which hung from an intricately molded ceiling. It seemed unreal that this was the place Draco had grown up, that this wasn’t a museum or a historically preserved site but the place that he’d played with friends, learned how to interact with the world.

She tried to look neither interested nor impressed. “You’ll have to tell me who all these people are, Marcus,” she said in Marilea’s low, breathy tones, glancing around. It was a relief that she’d recognised nobody so far, a parade of unfamiliar faces in early adulthood to middle age. Now she did, however, see Rita Skeeter leaning against a nearby table, sipping a blood-red drink, photographer at her arm and Quick-Quotes Quill skating away on a notepad before her.

Flint thrust out his barrel chest, looking important. He scanned the crowd. “Those are the Greengrasses,” he said, pointing to a couple in their forties. “They own the security company. That’s Algernon Wolflaw, Office of Domestic Affairs … only a half-blood, but well-liked. He had a hand in planning all this.”

He nodded to a young couple, two red-haired women in dress robes, one in black and deep purple, the other in grey and misty white. He lowered his voice. “Lidia Taylor and May DeRisa, Department of International Magical Cooperation. Some funny business with their family trees, but they wheedled out of supervision somehow.”

“Charming,” Hermione said, wondering if she should try and approach Taylor or DeRisa. If they ever _did_ need papers forged, perhaps they could be useful contacts.

Flint was already pressing forward, though, his big hand too tight on her waist. “I’ll introduce you to some of the others in Magical Games and Sports inside. Come on.”

Hermione let herself be steered, and they followed the stream of people across the foyer into something like a ballroom. Crisscrossing hardwoods stretched fifty feet to a small stage where a band was arranging a series of eccentric-looking instruments, all with many more strings and pegs and curlicued shapes than Muggle instruments would have involved. The ceiling was high and arched, and along one wall was a hearth that could have fit a small bus, where a long, low fire was simmering. A banner stretched over the hearth that read, in sparkling green and red letters, _1 ST ANNUAL MINISTRY OF MAGIC CHRISTMAS GALA FOR THE CELEBRATION OF MAGICAL UNITY. _On the opposite wall, a matching banner read _MAGIC IS MIGHT!_

Hermione’s unfazed expression must have slipped, because Flint was grinning down at her. “What do you think?”

She allowed a small, knowing smile. “Not quite the scale we manage in Dubai … but I’ve seen worse.”

“Never impressed, are you? I like that in a witch.”

Flint’s hand slid from her waist onto her lower back, then dipped dangerously low.

“Would you care to find me a drink?” she said, stepping forward, away from his touch.

He looked displeased for a moment, but nodded and stalked off through the accumulating crowd, leaving Hermione at a small table in the corner. She let out a slow exhalation, scanning the room for Draco, Harry, Umbridge, or the Weasleys.

They’d decided their first task would be to find Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, to show them the address of headquarters. They were certain the Weasleys wouldn’t linger at the gala long, but it was unlikely they would skip it altogether, when seeming like they’d assimilated into this new society was so important. She’d tucked the piece of parchment with the information into her bra; it itched whenever she moved.

Suddenly voices were murmuring. A kind of ripple seemed to move through the room, and Hermione followed the looks that everyone was sending back toward the grand entryway.

A chill flooded through her. They’d known she would be here, of course, she and her husband. This was their manor, now. Yet the sight of Bellatrix Lestrange, heavy-lidded and imperious, sweeping through the door with her husband Rodolphus, still made Hermione go very still. She remembered Bellatrix in the Department of Mysteries, lashing out with her wand, her spells flying with such mad power that they had splintered through layers upon layers of wood and glass.

On Bellatrix’s other side was Yaxley, who—unless Hermione was much mistaken—looked thinner than he had at the Ministry. He also appeared to be limping. Hermione wondered how he and Crabbe had been punished for the events of the Ministry, and even as she thought it, Crabbe crossed the threshold too, enormous and imposing, though his face, too, looked drawn, and his gait was unsteady.

And there, behind them … Hermione couldn’t help drawing a small, sharp breath. Vincent Crabbe was walking at his father’s shoulder, Millicent Bulstrode beside him in dress robes of pale green. There was a defiant look on Crabbe’s blunt features, as if he dared anyone to ask why his father might not be in perfect working condition.

Hermione knew she was unrecognizable. Yet when the rest of the group followed, she shifted further back into the corner. More and more faces she knew, all of whom could be dangerous. Garton Goyle, pale-faced and pockmarked, muttering something to his son Gregory with obvious irritation. An ethereally beautiful woman with obsidian-dark skin, ushering along Blaise Zabini, who looked prouder and more disgusted than ever. Then there was Theodore Nott, short and slender and sandy-haired, beside an older brother in Trainee Auror’s robes. Pansy Parkinson was gripping Theo’s arm, and Hermione saw, with a feeling of unwilling fascination, that a rain of fine cuts were laid upon her cheek, half-healed.

As the Slytherins dispersed out into the room, into many welcoming shouts from Ministry members, a disgusted voice muttered from the table next to Hermione,

“Let’s all clap for our ruling class.”

Hermione glanced over and received another shock. Standing at the table immediately next to her were two people. One was a plump, black-haired witch she didn’t recognise, but the other, she did: Sturgis Podmore, broad-shouldered, with a thatch of blond hair. He’d gone to Azkaban their fifth year after being put under the Imperius Curse by the Death Eaters. She remembered studying his photo in the _Daily Prophet._

He’d left the Order after his release from Azkaban to recover, but surely he was still sympathetic to the cause? And hadn’t the witch accompanying him just insulted the Death Eaters? What if he had been in touch with other Order members?

Dare she say something?

The witch’s dark eyes played over Hermione warily. Clearly she was worried Hermione had heard the comment. Hermione looked away quickly, not wanting to let on, but before she could decide whether or not to engage with them, Flint returned, holding two glasses of pale blue wine.

“Twilight-infused Sauvignon,” he said, setting Hermione’s glass in front of her. “I—”

He broke off, his eyes settling on Podmore and the witch. “Ah. … Podmore, right?” Flint grunted, sounding a bit suspicious but not outright unfriendly. “Obliviation Squads?”

Podmore nodded once. “Flint, I believe,” he said, extending his hand. They shook briefly. “And this is my girlfriend Nora Prewett.”

Hermione opened her mouth to introduce herself, but Flint was already doing it for her. “This is Marilea Linhardt.”

Podmore and Prewett both extended their hands. Hermione shook, wondering if there was some way she could communicate with Podmore, some kind of code to indicate her loyalties, and to question his.

“Marilea went to school in Dubai,” Flint went on. “Tell them about the MWA, Marilea. We’re all Hogwarts here.”

“Er—yes,” Hermione said, her heart beating very quickly. “It’s … well, from what I’ve read about your … about Hogwarts, the schools are quite different. We don’t have a house system at all, and we’ve only been coeducational more recently; it was a witches-only academy until the 1980s …”

She kept speaking, but her voice wasn’t cooperating. Marilea’s breathy tones kept slipping, and she was herself again, rattling off facts from the front of a classroom. She felt like she’d lost the thread of her character, trying to make a decision about Podmore on the spot.

Flint, luckily, didn’t seem to be listening to her words at all. He was scanning the room, his eyes lingering interestedly on some of the Slytherins who’d mixed into the crowd while he’d been gone. But Hermione met the witch’s eyes and her voice faltered. The witch was staring, unblinking, into her face, her cocktail glass suspended millimeters from her lips.

This stranger knew Hermione’s voice.

_How?_

It hit Hermione like a thunderbolt. It wasn’t ‘Nora Prewett’ at all. _It was Tonks._

Podmore had noticed something was off. His hazel eyes flicked from Hermione to Tonks.

“Flint,” Podmore said suddenly.

Flint looked back to them. “What?”

“Crabbe was trying to flag you down,” Podmore said, pointing to the very opposite end of the room, where both the elder and younger Crabbes were in conversation with Zabini.

Flint looked momentarily discomfited, and Hermione knew he was aware of the elder Crabbe’s status as a Death Eater. He glanced down at Hermione. “I should—er, I’ll speak with him alone. You don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” Hermione said. “I’ll wait for you here.”

The instant Flint had folded into the crowd, Hermione, Podmore, and Tonks drew in together, practically into a huddle.

“Wotcher, Hermione,” Tonks whispered, her face filled with disbelief and something like respect.

“Hermione _Granger?_ ” Podmore whispered, his large brown eyes filled with worry. Tonks nodded.

“Tonks,” Hermione said. “You’re safe. You’re all right. How’s Remus?” Her eyes fell to Tonks’s stomach, which was just as curvy as the rest of her body. “Why are you here _?_ ”

“Remus is fine. We’ve been moving from place to place,” Tonks whispered. “We and Kingsley, we’ve been burning through sympathisers’ houses before they can find us. We’ve been at Pod’s place a week now, though, getting ready for this. We’re trying to find the Weasleys. Get organised again.”

Hermione turned toward the wall and slipped the parchment out of her bra, then showed it to both Podmore and Tonks. “Read this. Quickly,” she whispered.

They did, their eyes widening. Tonks’s unfamiliar face began to glow with a gutsy, very Tonks-like excitement. “Yes,” she breathed. “That’s the ticket.”

Hermione’s eyes flew to Flint, who was crossing the room toward them again with a deep scowl. “You can’t tell anyone you saw me,” she whispered, tucking the parchment back down her dress robes. “I was never here, do you understand?”

Podmore took a sharp breath. “Is _he_ here?” He mouthed his name: _Potter?_

Hermione glanced around. No one was looking; no one was listening.

She nodded.

Podmore’s hand flew to his mouth. Tonks’s face lit up.

“We’re here on Order business,” Hermione whispered urgently. “Not a word. Do you understand?”

They nodded, and as Flint arrived at the table, Hermione stepped back and pulled her low, breathy voice back into place. “Well, it was lovely to meet your … _friends_ , Marcus …” She eyed Tonks and Podmore with all the disdain she could manage. “But I’d love to meet some of your colleagues. Didn’t you say the whole department would be here? …”

As she let him steer her away, she passed a bald, bearded figure holding a silver tray topped with tiny tartlets: Harry. Their eyes locked. As a guest swept a tartlet off the platter, ignoring Harry completely, he made their signal for _everything on schedule,_ tapping his chin twice with a knuckle.

 _Weasleys?_ she signaled, a discreet flash of three fingers. _Umbridge?_ a discreet flash of her pinky.

He twitched his head in a shake.

Hermione nodded. She longed to tell him about Tonks and Podmore—she wanted to let him know that Remus was _safe,_ that Kingsley was safe, that they had two more allies—but she couldn’t break away from Flint just now, or he would start to feel like she was avoiding him.

Her heart rate settled as Flint introduced her to colleague after colleague from the Department of Magical Games and Sports. The band began to play. For half an hour or so, Hermione finally got to use all the Quidditch knowledge she’d studied for, keeping up with a conversation about the Quidditch World Cup of 1974 in Syria. The mostly male department members kept giving her surprised and admiring looks, and Flint subtle thumps of congratulation, which irritated Hermione. No, she didn’t _actually_ care about Quidditch, but it wasn’t as if real female Quidditch fans were _rare_.

But she tried not to get too involved. They were situated at a corner of the hearth where she could monitor the door. And at 9 p.m., they appeared in the threshold: Molly and Arthur Weasley, looking shabby and out of place. Many gala attendees paused to curl their lips at the Weasleys, or simply shuffled away, looking afraid to be too near them. Mr. Weasley was wearing a resigned look; Mrs. Weasley’s round face was stoic.

“Excuse me, Marcus,” Hermione said. “I need to find a bathroom.”

He nodded, only half-seeming to hear her, and she forged quickly across the room, not wanting the Weasleys to get too far into the crowd. They were only a half-dozen paces into the ballroom when Hermione reached them and faked a small, unobtrusive stumble, spilling her Twilit Sauvignon onto the shoulder of Mrs. Weasley’s robes.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Hermione said, catching her balance on both Mr. and Mrs. Weasley’s arms. She’d practiced the maneuver for upwards of an hour on Draco and Harry, and it worked perfectly. Caught off guard, they held her up, and she leaned in, saying close to their ears,

“It’s Hermione. Follow me.”

Both the Weasleys drew sharp breaths. To their credit, they managed to control their shock quickly, wrangling their faces back into something like annoyance.

“I feel dreadful,” Hermione said more loudly, pulling back to usher them out into the foyer. “Here, let me clean that.”

Rather than simply using her wand, she took a fistful of napkins from a nearby table and began to dab them against Mrs. Weasley’s shoulder. They passed another stern member of the Greengrass Guard, then moved down a narrow side hall lined with oil landscapes in gilt frames, where signs indicated a bathroom. They stopped in the middle of the hall.

“No problem at all, dear,” Mrs. Weasley said, letting Hermione continue to fuss as an older woman bustled out of the bathroom, rummaging in a large black bag.

The instant the woman was out of sight, the hall deserted, they slipped through a nearby door into a closet and dropped the act.

“You mustn’t be here,” Mrs. Weasley whispered, her face pale and suddenly terrified. “What were you _thinking?_ You must leave now!”

“No time to argue,” Hermione hissed, pulling the slip of parchment from her robes. “Read this.”

The Weasleys did as they were told.

Mr. Weasley looked very serious as he glanced back up at her. He, like McGonagall, had clearly recognised his son’s writing. “Is Ron here, too?”

Hermione’s heart dropped. She’d expected it. She’d told herself to expect it. And yet this confirmation that Ron was not at the Burrow made panic flood through her.

“He hasn’t been with us for two months,” she whispered. “He hasn’t been to the Burrow?”

Mrs. Weasley’s kind face slackened further. She didn’t seem able to speak, just shook her head.

“Nor to Bill and Fleur’s?” Hermione added with a note of desperation.

Mr. Weasley shook his head. His chest was rising and falling, his breathing uneven. “I visited Shell Cottage last week,” he managed to say. “It’s where the family is meant to meet if something goes wrong. … Bill and Fleur are there alone.”

Hermione felt her own breaths growing shallow, too. She tried to clutch at her purpose. She had to focus. She could worry later, when she was safe, when they had the Horcrux.

“St-Sturgis Podmore and Tonks are in the ballroom,” she whispered, her lips numb and clumsy. “They want to speak to you. We’re all trying to regroup. Pack your things when you can and bring the whole family to headquarters, and any tents you can find. You won’t have to hide anymore … we can make a plan. I have to go.”

“Wait,” said Mr. Weasley, catching her arm. “The Malfoy boy. Is he still with you?”

It broke through her numbness. “Y-yes, why?”

“His mother found me outside the Ministry. I know where they’re staying.”

* * *

Draco felt as if he were in a nightmare.

He’d had dreams of home over the past few weeks with increasing regularity. In the dreams, there had always been something _off_ about the manor, something he couldn’t pinpoint, something about the angles, or the colors.

But simply moving through the halls from the East Wing to the main rooms, finding nearly everything just as he’d last seen it over the Easter holidays, was somehow a thousand times more disorienting. After missing his home for months, it was a kind of agony to be back here. All the spacious rooms and familiar furnishings, the former trappings of his life, still identically remained, as if he hadn’t disappeared, as if he hadn’t died, as if his absence meant nothing.

He hadn’t dared go down to the west end of the house, to his room. He was already feeling almost feverish.

“You all right, mate?” said a spotty woman a few years older than him, balancing a pair of hors d’oeuvres trays as they exited the kitchen. “Someone say something to you?”

It was as good an excuse as any for his distraction, so Draco nodded.

“The guests in these places are always the bloody worst, aren’t they,” said the woman with a knowing wink. “Chin up. Lizzie always takes us out to the Leaky Cauldron the night after, her treat. We can down a litre of Firewhisky and swap stories about the biggest arseholes.”

And she strode down the long green carpet that spanned the manor’s main hall.

Draco carried a tray of clean glasses after her, past the sculpted bust of Callalya the Catastrophic, past the long painting of the Battle of the Hebridean Blacks. He emerged at the top of the staircase in the foyer, looking down at the plane of smooth white marble, the chandelier, the tremendous Christmas tree.

By the time he reached the bottom of the steps, he was sweating again. He’d worked in the kitchen so far, had managed to avoid going into the room ahead, which his family had called the hearth room.

 _It won’t look the same,_ he told himself. _They’ll have cleared all the furniture away._

That was worse. With the furniture cleared, the floor would be exposed. He remembered the stretch of old carpet that ran along the hearth, rubbing into his cheek. He remembered the Muggle man at the Dark Lord’s wandtip, the way his body had jiggled like a marionette, bare heels splayed upon the parquet floors. The Dark Lord had cut away his shirt, and cut lines into his skin, and the man had screamed, and then he’d been upside-down.

And Draco had stood there and laughed, his voice melting into the rest.

An hour later the man had been dead.

Draco had taken the Mark there, in that room. It had been agony, but he’d done it willingly, thirsty for the chance to undo his father’s supposed mistakes. In the echo of voices from the gala he could practically hear his own voice now, everything he’d spat at the Death Eaters in these halls—all the jeering he’d tried to withstand by lashing out with insults at Muggle-borns and half-bloods and blood traitors. All the ways he’d chosen to belong.

Draco swayed at the bottom of the steps and looked through the open doors into the night, down the long twin hedges lit with tiny lights. There they were again, the ghosts that chased him. They were everywhere. Spots burst in his eyes. He saw his eleven-year-old self tearing down that gravel path, yelling at Crabbe and Goyle, _Hurry up, for Merlin’s sake—you two are so slow._ He saw himself riding a toy broomstick over this balcony, zooming over the marble, and bragging to Pansy that she could never catch up. He saw himself at age fourteen, moping as he slid down the banister, making fun of Hermione to his mother, trying to mask his own insecurity that—yet again—a Muggle-born had outscored him in every test.

This place was his past. It was everything he’d ever been. And now he was separate from it, out in the open, in the new and quiet world. And if blood meant nothing, he’d acted that way for sixteen years for nothing. Every word, every thought, every action, had been for nothing.

In third year, just after slapping him, Hermione had called him foul. She’d called him _evil_. He’d tried to laugh about it later, but even then it had rung half-hollow. He saw himself through her eyes now, deriding the Gamekeeper who had comforted her. … He saw himself turning to his mother in Madam Malkin’s and saying, hardly over a year ago, _If you’re wondering what the smell is, Mother, a Mudblood just walked in._

Draco couldn’t breathe. There was a taste in his mouth like bile. He turned left unthinkingly, away from the threshold of the gala. He made for a side corridor, then tried to shoulder through a nearby door. It was locked, but he said through gritted teeth, “ _Alohomora,”_ needing privacy, needing to be out of sight, and it came open. The passage beyond was dark and cold, a set of steep steps. He descended a few and whispered, “ _Lumos,”_ and set down the tray of wine glasses, and leaned against the stone wall, letting out hard breaths.

The last few months, he’d grown more and more acquainted with self-doubt, but _this_ —this was something else, this thick, treacly self-loathing, burning through his veins like magma. After these long months, learning to trust Hermione, to care for her, to fear for her—after these past few weeks, which had been an oasis of trust and understanding in the chaos of the last year—

Draco suddenly couldn’t understand how she didn’t _still_ loathe him. How could she look at him without seeing all these things that suddenly, in retrospect, made him feel a shame so violent it was like panic? And what was he supposed to _do,_ now that he was seeing his past self this way? He’d changed his mind, he’d changed his actions, but he was still contained in himself. He couldn’t tear his old self out of his body. He would never be able to.

Of course McGonagall had looked at him with suspicion. For the rest of his life people would look at him that way.

 _Shouldn’t they?_ he thought, suddenly feeling bitter and vengeful and full of hate. Since when had _he_ ever looked at someone and forgiven them everything they’d ever done? Hadn’t he held petty, stupid grudges, a thousand minuscule judgments? Why should he be any different? Why should anyone even care if he’d changed?

Then a sound made Draco jerk so violently he nearly toppled down the stairs.

“Hello?”

It echoed up from below, small and feeble.

For a long moment Draco could only stare down the dark flight of steps to their invisible end, his heart pounding even harder now. His thoughts seemed to have frozen, his mind suddenly blank.

“Is someone there?”

It was a girl’s voice.

With a sense of sick dread compounding inside him, Draco began to climb down. Usually they stored extra furniture down here for their summer garden parties. Usually this place was dark and forgotten.

Now, as he neared the foot, he saw that a heavy door had been conjured into place, sealing off the space beyond. Draco’s heart beat in his throat, and he held his wand aloft as he slowed, casting the light forward.

There was a barred window in the door. A face was staring out at him, grimy and starved-looking, eyes wide and pale in the gloom.

It was Luna Lovegood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumbl away with me :)](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)
> 
> "hmm," you say, "that dress sounds awfully familiar!" you are Correct, i lost my mind over [this piece by elithien](https://elithien.tumblr.com/post/620374443370463232/ministry-gala-au) and wrote it directly in.


	18. Malfoy Manor

“ _L_ —” Luna’s name stopped at the tip of Draco’s tongue as he remembered his disguise.

“Who are you?” she asked. Her voice, always so dreamy, was a parched slip of a thing now.

Draco managed to eke out the name on his Spizzworth’s application. “A-Aidan March.”

“You aren’t a Death Eater.” It wasn’t a question, but it made Draco’s left forearm tingle. Luna’s eyes travelled over his caterer’s uniform. “Are you here to help us?”

 _“Us?_ ”

Luna drifted back from the door. As Draco held his wand closer to the barred window, he made out a man lying motionless against the wall nearby, though he looked not so much like a man as a corpse, emaciated and grimy, a mass of filthy grey hair hanging around his skeletal face.

It was Ollivander. The wandmaker bore hardly any resemblance to the man who had clapped with delight when Draco, eleven years old, had swished this very wand through the air to produce a shimmering tail of white flame.

Fear and disgust pulsed through Draco. It was all he could do not to step backward from the sight. This was what awaited him, Hermione, and Harry if they were captured tonight—this, and worse.

“Is that a uniform?” said Luna, moving back in front of the window. Though her voice was hoarse, she sounded innocently curious, too, as if Draco had swung by for tea and light conversation.

“I … I work for a caterer. There’s a Ministry of Magic gala upstairs. … Hundreds of people.”

“Oh. I see.” She nodded, seeming to consider. “I suppose it would be quite difficult to get us out unseen, then.”

 _Quite difficult_ , Draco thought, was the understatement of the year. As he thought of Bellatrix, his fear redoubled, sending ice over his skin. If Malfoy Manor was now being used for _this_ purpose, his aunt must have taken precautions to ensure their captives didn’t escape.

He didn’t know what to do. He had to think pragmatically. He knew that if he told Hermione or Potter about this, they would insist on trying to save Luna and Ollivander, but it wouldn’t help the captives if the three of them got chucked into this cell alongside them. Their circumstances would only worsen if Potter, in particular, were killed. It might not be worth the risk to try—might be the better option to take the Horcrux, go, and focus on the Dark Lord’s fall.

And yet even the idea of keeping this from Hermione made him feel that oppressive sense of shame again. He could only imagine her fury and disgust if he walked away, if he didn’t tell her about this until after they’d returned to headquarters.

 _But it would be to keep her safe,_ he thought. _To keep all of us alive._

Still—Ollivander’s gaunt, twitching face … the way Luna had said, _Are you here to help us?_

“Why are you here?” Draco said shakily.

“My father’s the editor of _The Quibbler._ Have you heard of it?” she added with some pride.

Her love for her father’s ridiculous rag had never seemed less funny. “Yeah,” Draco said.

“Good. Good,” Luna said absently, nodding. Her hand shook as she moved a lock of dirty blonde hair back from her face. “Well, I suppose they don’t like what he’s been printing lately. … He’s been writing stories about the Order of the Phoenix, and how we should band together to support Harry Potter. So, they took me from the Hogwarts Express when I was on the way home for Christmas Break.”

She looked around the cellar. “They hurt me rather a lot when I arrived. … I’ve met Bellatrix Lestrange before, you see. She was pleased to see me again.” Her large, ghostly eyes looked suddenly hollow. “After an hour or two, they had a few people chase me through the woods. … They told me I could leave if I could reach the gate before them, but now that I think of it, I doubt there was ever a gate at all.”

Draco felt ill. Of course—Luna Lovegood had been at the Department of Mysteries with the rest of Potter’s friends. Draco could imagine the pleasure Bella would have had, torturing one of the people responsible for the loss of the Prophecy.

Then they would have owled evidence back to Luna’s father to prove they had her. They would have made some oblique reference to her torture, and ensured he knew that worse could always happen to her.

Luna seemed unperturbed by Draco’s silence. “Would you mind telling me what day it is?” she asked. “Only it gets hard to keep track in here.”

“It’s the 23rd.”

“Oh.” Luna sighed. “That explains why I’m so hungry.”

“They haven’t fed you?”

“Only once since I arrived here, and that was the nineteenth. You wouldn’t be able to bring us something to eat or drink, would you?” She paused. “It would be a real help,” she added.

The hope in her voice was piteous. _Merlin,_ Draco thought, his stomach in knots—she’d already resigned herself to living here, like this. Maybe even dying here.

He tried to remember the evening of the nineteenth. Had he and Hermione been huddled in front of the fire that night, warm and safe, Draco toying with thoughts of abandoning the plan and staying in headquarters forever? And all the while, had Luna been under Bellatrix’s Cruciatus, or fleeing through the woods in the Malfoy grounds wild-eyed, twigs snapping in her blond hair, tripping into the mud?

Draco felt as if he’d crashed down to Earth after a hundred-foot fall. He’d known the war for the loyalty of the Wizarding World had ground onward while they’d been in their safe haven, but the reports on the Wireless had started to feel so distant, sanitised as they were by the Ministry.

For strategy’s sake, the Death Eaters wouldn’t kill Luna. Draco knew that. He also knew they’d do anything and everything else, if not to manipulate her father, then out of boredom or frustration. If this was what she looked like after only four days’ captivity … Draco resisted the image of the girl propped against the wall like Ollivander, months later.

Something was coalescing inside Draco, a fragile, tentative knot of determination. Hadn’t he found a hidden way into Hogwarts last year? Hadn’t he solved an unsolvable problem? And this was the manor. He knew this place the way he knew himself.

There must be a way to manage it again.

“Give me ten minutes,” he rasped.

As he started up the steps, climbing out of the darkness beneath the manor, he glanced back down the steps at Luna’s face, an amorphous smudge dwindling like a dying candle. In truth he had no idea what he was doing, except that he was going to find the others, and then there would be no going back.

Draco faced forward again and held his wand aloft and climbed. Somehow the steep stairs looked three times as long as when he’d descended into the depths, and the manor suddenly seemed treacherous, despite the glittering splendour above—or maybe precisely because of that splendour. The home of his childhood seemed to turn transparent, hovering like a mirage in a shining layer over reality. The ancient house shared his name. It had shaped him, it had made him, it was elegance and grace and refinement. Hours before, standing at the foot of the sweeping drive, he’d felt relief and even pride to see it again, to remember where he came from.

But here, inside and deep beneath, in its hidden places, this was its foundation, after all. Torture and debasement, his own and others’. Hideous actions, his own and others’. Lavish finery, concealing the truth that belonged to him and the lies he’d inherited.

Draco’s legs were tiring, and he had that whirling feeling, again, of nightmare. Pressing in on him was the crushing sensation of captivity. That was the manor, in the end. Enclosure. But he kept climbing. He could not, would not stop. There would be a way out. There had to be.

* * *

Hermione waited until Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had disappeared from the hall before returning to the gala. Just inside the door, a blond-bearded someone caught her eye. It was Harry. She flashed three fingers and gave a small nod: the Weasley part of their plan was complete.

A triumphant look flashed across Harry’s face, and he flashed his pinkie finger, then nodded, too. Hermione’s heart leapt. Umbridge had arrived—and Harry had succeeded in giving her a drink that contained the crucial part of their plan. Fast-acting laxative powder.

Under the guise of looking around for Flint, she navigated close enough to Harry to whisper,

“How long ago?”

“Seven minutes or so. She’s in the sunroom.”

“And Draco?”

“Kitchen, I think.”

Hermione nodded, then peeled away. She scanned the room for Draco with an anxious pang—she knew this was the room where Voldemort had used the Cruciatus on him, and that he’d hoped to avoid it as long as possible. Still, they needed him here soon, on the off-chance that Umbridge somehow slipped between her fingers, or if something else went wrong. All their dozens of contingency plans involved him.

Just then, a wailing scream split the air throughout the ballroom, high and inhuman. The band broke off, and a panicked surge of voices rose through the gala. Hermione pressed herself against the wall, terrified that they’d somehow been detected, that this was some piece of anti-disguise magic they hadn’t planned for—but then she saw two members of the Greengrass Guard forcing their way through the crowd toward one of the windows, which a tall, portly wizard had cracked open. It was a Caterwauling Charm, Hermione realised.

“What?” the wizard was saying indignantly. “It’s stifling in here! I can’t get a bit of fresh air?”

“Cast a Clean Air Charm if you need fresh air,” the guard said, cool and stony-faced, shutting the window again.

“ _Sonorus,”_ said the other guard. Her magically amplified voice announced throughout the ballroom: “Guests will please note that Caterwauling Charms have been applied at windows and all unapproved exits to improve event security and prevent any burglarising. Thank you and please enjoy your evening.”

As they exited the ballroom and the music started back up again, Hermione’s heart was still pattering quickly. She was grateful it had happened. They hadn’t planned for Caterwauling Charms, and that bit of security rendered several of the contingency plans useless. Hermione mentally crossed them off the list, but she frowned, feeling suspicious. Sealing off the entire manor seemed like an extreme measure to ‘prevent burglarising’ …

Then she saw Flint scanning the crowd with dissatisfaction. She feigned relief and navigated toward him.

“Marilea,” he said. “ _There_ you are. Thought you’d run off with someone and set off the Caterwauling Charm.”

She laughed a low, melodic laugh. “I’m sorry. I thought I was leaving you in good company.”

“They’ve all gone off to dance now.” He extended one large hand. “Care to?”

Hermione hesitated. The entrance to the sunroom was at the end of the ballroom, a set of big glass doors fogged by the heat of the crowd. She needed to get in there to monitor Umbridge. What if her prey left for the toilets through another exit?

But Flint clearly already thought that she wasn’t paying enough attention to him. She needed as little friction as possible, so that when she left to pursue the Horcrux, he didn’t feel suspicious.

She decided to play at self-consciousness. Marilea had to have a weakness, didn’t she?

“O-oh,” she said, faltering as she looked back at the many dancing couples. “Er … could we have another drink, first?” She glanced from side to side, as if on the brink of reluctant admission, then said, “You may find it hard to believe, but I have a difficult time loosening up. Sometimes.”

With relief, she saw Flint’s harsh features soften. “Sure,” he said. “Later. It’s still really early.”

When he placed his hand on her back again, it was in a more respectful location than before, almost reassuring. For the first time, Hermione felt a twinge of guilt about this charade. Flint had been so self-centred and aggressive throughout that she hadn’t considered that he might develop legitimate feelings for Marilea.

But then they came out into the sunroom, and Flint knocked into someone just beyond the door, and Hermione forgot all about her guilt. He’d walked directly into a tall, attractive couple: the man burly and fair, with windswept sandy hair; the woman dark-skinned, with microbraids wound up into an elegant bun. They looked older than they had at Hogwarts, ineffably more adult, but unmistakable. Oliver Wood and Angelina Johnson.

The silence that dropped between the former Quidditch rivals was excruciating. The band, dulled on the other side of the door, played on; an enchanted fountain burbled in the humid air. Hermione cast an awkward look around the sunroom, which was filled with row upon row of plants that would have made Professor Sprout proud.

Flint was the first to speak. “Wood,” he said. “Johnson.” Then, with a smirk, he said, “Mad who they’ll let into these events.”

“Yes,” said Angelina, looking Flint over. “It is.”

Hermione felt the weight of Angelina’s dislike, but it seemed she didn’t dare insult Flint openly. This seemed to satisfy Flint. The smirk widened into a smug look that Hermione hated. She wished she weren’t at his side.

It felt bizarre, standing here in front of the two older Gryffindors. Hadn’t she partnered with Angelina during DA meetings half a dozen times, Stunned her back into piles of cushions and had Angelina’s formidable Impediment jinx cast upon her, too? And Hermione had listened to Harry complain about Wood’s sadistic captaining for three full years … and now here he was, here they all were, in a new world.

“Angelina Johnson and Oliver Wood,” Flint introduced to Hermione. “We went to Hogwarts together, though they were in the house with most of the Muggle-lovers. Gotten over that now, have you?” He was definitely jeering now, taunting Angelina and Wood, both of whom were drawn as taut as bowstrings. Hermione could see Angelina’s fingers digging into Wood’s wrist as they both tried for patience.

“Thought so,” Flint said, with a sip from his glass of Firewhisky. “We can all get along now, though. School’s over. New rules out here in the real world. … This is Marilea Linhardt, you two. Marilea, Wood plays Keeper for Puddlemere United, and Johnson’s in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, athletics division.”

Angelina and Wood both stuck out their hands, looking reluctant. Hermione avoided their eyes and shook as quickly as possible.

“Marilea went to school in Dubai,” Flint went on. “She’s thinking about being a Quidditch commentator, and…”

Hermione’s attention slipped. There she was. There, coming out from behind a Flutterby Bush in a vast adobe pot, was Dolores Umbridge.

Umbridge wore satin dress robes in fuchsia and her usual saccharine smile, and the Horcrux gleamed upon her chest. She was deep in conversation with none other than Bellatrix Lestrange.

Two Aurors were flanking Umbridge, two tall, expressionless men. Hermione let out a slow breath. It was a stroke of luck that both Aurors were men. There was nearly no likelihood that they would insist on standing guard in the powder room, where the guests might need to privately adjust their clothing. Draco had informed her and Harry that it was the height of rudeness to watch glamour magic being performed, in particular, and that if Hermione saw anyone erasing wrinkles in the powder room, she should keep her eyes averted.

“… simply can’t express our gratitude for your generosity, Madam Lestrange,” Umbridge was simpering. “The Minister was so honoured that you would open your doors, especially after all the wrongs the Ministry has done you over the years. The Minister himself will be here soon, of course …”

“Marilea?” said Flint.

Hermione started and looked back to them. “Pardon me,” she said. “That woman’s quite eye-catching, isn’t she?” She glanced back at Bellatrix, who looked haughty and disdainful as usual, but not dissatisfied with Umbridge’s flattery.

Wood and Angelina exchanged uneasy looks. Flint shifted too. “That’s Bellatrix Lestrange,” he said, his voice half its earlier volume.

“What, Flint?” said Angelina. “Not going to extol her virtues? I thought you lot looked up to her.”

“Shut up,” Flint said through his teeth.

Hermione pretended not to notice any of this. “And the woman with her?”

“Dolores Umbridge,” Flint said, sounding more at ease. “Senior Undersecretary to the Minister.”

“What lovely dress robes,” Hermione said. “Such an unusual shade.”

But Umbridge and Bellatrix had begun to laugh at something, and such a wave of hatred ran through Hermione at the sight of Umbridge laughing with Sirius’s murderer that her voice came out high and tight, not at all like Marilea’s. Flint gave her a surprised look, but it was Angelina’s expression that made Hermione’s stomach drop. Her eyes had fixed on Hermione’s face with the hard focus that the Chaser had assumed every time she threw a perfectly aimed goal.

As Flint glanced back toward the fogged-up doors to the ballroom, Hermione met Angelina’s eyes and gave her head a tiny, urgent shake.

Angelina looked stunned for an instant. Then she dipped her head in an equally tiny nod.

“In any case,” Hermione said to Flint when he looked back down at her, “I’m surprised this is only the _first_ annual gala. Wasn’t there a call for something like this before? …”

They carried on an easy, shallow conversation for several more minutes, Hermione keeping an eye on Umbridge.

Then Umbridge’s face contracted with surprise and dread. Hermione’s pulse began to speed. She felt the weight of the wand in her pocket again. Soon enough Umbridge was shifting awkwardly in place, and the vengeful part of Hermione filled with satisfaction. She remembered the loathsome woman in the Ministry—so excited to tear Muggle-borns away from their loved ones. The more discomfort in her life, the better, as far as Hermione was concerned.

Then Umbridge was making her excuses and hurrying toward the door, the Aurors following her.

Hermione made herself count to ten. Then she winced, squinting one eye until it watered. “Marcus—I need to dash to the powder room—my makeup. … Shall I meet you on the dance floor?”

He brightened. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll see you in there.”

Hermione slipped out of the sunroom into the hall. Umbridge was trotting with increasing speed toward the powder room, which served as a sort of antechamber to the bathroom. There was a line of a half-dozen women down the hall, but Umbridge bypassed all of them, to several disgruntled looks. She disappeared into the powder room.

The line was inconvenient, but they had a plan for this. Either Harry or Draco was supposed to keep an eye on the wait time, and if this happened, they were meant to tell the other women about the other bathrooms spread throughout the west wing.

But as Hermione joined the line, neither Harry nor Draco appeared.

Seconds ticked by, and Hermione’s mouth grew dry. Where were they? What could they possibly be doing? They didn’t have forever, and the longer Umbridge took in the bathroom, the longer the line would grow—the more conspicuous they would be.

Just as Hermione was about to resort to the Puking Pastille sewn into her neckline, he appeared at the entrance to the foyer. Draco, passing the Greengrass Guard who monitored the hall, moving with purpose toward the line. Hermione felt limp with relief. She could just make out his features beneath the makeup, and the sight of him, the reminder that she wasn’t alone, bolstered her.

“Excuse me,” Draco announced, stopping at the head of the line. He’d turned his smooth drawl into a buzzing, nasal voice. “As we’ve had a number of complaints about the wait, we’ve decided to open up the toilets on the second floor temporarily. There are two more just up these stairs. Follow me.” The line in front of Hermione peeled off, hurrying after Draco toward the stairwell he’d indicated.

She couldn’t help but think that Draco’s eyes had looked panicked as he’d passed her. She tried not to think about it, tried to focus only on the Horcrux. If something had gone wrong, she couldn’t do anything about it now, at the crucial moment.

She moved to the door and said, rubbing her fingertip against her lower eyelid as if irritated with her makeup, “I only need the powder room.” The Aurors’ eyes moved over her, then off, as she entered. The door clicked shut behind her.

The layout of the room was just as Draco had described. To one side was a luxurious counter of Italian marble, where twin mirrors were lit by hovering bulbs. In the corner opposite the counter was the door to the bathroom. There were three other women in the powder room: two queued against the wall for the W.C., and the last, a squat older witch in velvet whose hands were down her dress, pulling at an evidently problematic bra.

“… know she’s a higher-up,” one of the queued women was muttering, “but I’ve been waiting for ten minutes, and she just barges past …”

“They’ve opened up the upstairs bathrooms,” Hermione said over her shoulder to the queued women as she approached one of the mirrors.

The two women glanced over. “Really?”

“Yes. I’d try those, if I were you. I overheard Madam Umbridge saying she didn’t feel well. She may be a while.”

The women exchanged a glance, then nodded to Hermione. “Thanks,” one said, and they both exited the powder room.

Hermione continued to toy with her eyelid for a moment, but the older witch in velvet didn’t seem close to leaving. “Honestly,” Hermione said with a light sigh. “They call it Ellwina’s Everlasting Eyeliner and yet I could swear it needs fixing every twenty minutes.”

The other witch let out a hearty laugh. “Same with this Sticking Charm. Though you’re too young to need that, of course.”

“Soon enough,” said Hermione with a friendly smile. She drew her wand, leaned close to the mirror, and pretended to touch it to her eyelid. Then she leaned back, as if to admire the effect, and flicked it in the other witch’s direction, thinking, _Confundo!_

The other witch’s face went momentarily slack. Then confusion passed over her face, and her expression cleared. She tugged her dress back into place before bustling out of the powder room. Hermione was alone.

At once, she stopped fidgeting with her eye and assumed her place in front of the bathroom door. For a long moment she waited, her body so full of tension that she thought she might be sick.

The toilet flushed.

 _Muffliato,_ she thought, flicking her wand back at the door to the hall. _Colloportus._

Locking the door was a big risk, probably the most suspicious part of the operation—but for these thirty seconds, she couldn’t have any other guests getting in. She turned back to the bathroom door and drew a shaky breath. Then— _Alohomora._

The bathroom door clicked open.

Time blurred and jerked. One moment Hermione was flying over the threshold, met with the sight of Dolores Umbridge washing her hands. In the same moment, Umbridge let out a shriek, her hand flying for her wand. But she was too late. Hermione had already cast—

_Obliviate!_

The spell struck Umbridge hard, and she sank back against the wall, her eyes rolling, momentarily unconscious. Hermione leapt forward and caught her before she hit the ground. She unclipped the locket from Umbridge’s neck and paused for an instant, remembering what she was holding, feeling that aliveness within it, as the diadem had felt alive. A shiver shot down her back.

She shook herself back to life, stuffed the Horcrux down her dress into her bra, and slipped a golden bracelet from around her wrist. She Transfigured it into a passable copy of the locket, which she fastened around Umbridge’s ruff.

Her heart beat harder. Almost done now. She drew a deep breath and whispered the spell she’d hated practicing, for it was the same spell she’d used on her parents. “ _Novaria._ ”

Umbridge’s eyelids flickered, but she didn’t yet wake. Hermione dragged her forward into the powder room, and as she hauled Umbridge upright against the closed bathroom door, she removed the _Muffliato_ and unlocked the door to the powder room again.

She turned back to Umbridge. _Confundo,_ she thought, flicking her wand. _Rennervate._

Umbridge’s eyes flew open.

“I said,” Hermione said, frowning, “your dress robes are lovely.”

Umbridge’s wide, pouchy face still looked disoriented. For a long, horrible second, Hermione was worried the false memories hadn’t taken—that Umbridge remembered something other than washing her hands at the sink, opening the door, and, after a brief moment’s dizziness, being greeted by a compliment from Marilea Linhardt.

Then Umbridge’s expression cleared. “Thank you,” she said, with a wide-eyed look at Hermione’s robes that clearly said she didn’t feel the same about Hermione’s appearance.

Then she trotted out of the powder room. She wobbled for a moment at the door, which alarmed Hermione, but she seemed to shake it off.

She was gone. It was done.

Hermione’s mouth opened, and she drew several long, deep breaths. Her heart was beating as if she’d just sprinted miles, but triumph flooded through her. The plan had gone exactly as they’d hoped, and the Horcrux was warm against her breast. They _had_ it. The locket was theirs. Now the only thing was to make their excuses and leave the grounds, and no one would be the wiser.

But when she left the powder room, Draco was stationed against the opposite wall again.

Her heart dropped. She hadn’t imagined the panic in his eyes. Something _had_ gone wrong, before—they weren’t meant to have any contact after her encounter with Umbridge, not until they were outside the manor.

“Excuse me,” she said to Draco, “I’ve been told this house has a bust of Callalya the Catastrophic. Could you direct me to it?” Their code for a private place to speak.

“Right this way,” he said.

“I’ve got the locket,” she whispered as she followed him down the hall toward the foyer.

He glanced down at her and nodded once.

Hermione’s heart beat harder. He hardly even seemed pleased that they’d done it, that they’d gotten the object they’d been striving for months to steal.

As they passed through the foyer, Hermione realised one of the Greengrass Guards’ eyes were following them. Draco was leading her not back into the ballroom, but toward a side hall, where another catering employee was carrying a tray of empty glasses. Guests probably weren’t meant to be in this area.

But Draco had noticed, too. “I’m _so_ sorry the refreshments weren’t up to your standard,” he said—not very convincingly, Hermione thought. He sounded almost sarcastic. Of course, Draco Malfoy pretending to work in the service industry had been a ridiculous mismatch all along.

“I don’t need your apologies,” she said coldly as they passed the suspicious guard. “I want to tell Ms. Spizzworth herself that I’ve never had such undercooked crab in my life. It’ll be a miracle if no one gets food poisoning. …”

Hermione thought she saw the Greengrass Guard give an irritated roll of the eyes, but the woman said nothing as they entered the side hall.

“What is it?” Hermione breathed. “What’s going on?”

“Just wait. Here.” Draco led her to a locked door and tapped the handle with his wand. Hermione’s feeling of foreboding increased as she looked down the steep stairs, which melted into total darkness.

Then Harry jogged up out of the dark, and even past his disguise, even in the half-light, she could see the panic on his face. “Come down,” he whispered. “Now.”

* * *

“What are we going to do?” Hermione moaned. Her eyes were wide and terrified.

Draco’s throat was tight as he leaned back against the wall. He still hadn’t had an epiphany about how to get the captives out of the house, and worse, the heavy door was still locked. _Alohomora_ had failed to open it, as had three other unlocking spells, as had a series of cutting and blasting jinxes. They had, however, managed to pass a tray’s worth of hors d’oeuvres and two large glasses of water through the barred window, which Luna and Ollivander were in the process of wolfing down.

They hadn’t told the pair Draco’s identity, which could be plucked out of Luna’s or Ollivander’s heads if an escape attempt went wrong. To their knowledge, he was still Aidan March, sympathiser. However, they had shown Luna and Ollivander the slip of paper with the address of headquarters. Under the bounds of the Fidelius Charm, only Weasley could transfer the secret to a new party in speech, sign, or script—so even if Bellatrix used Legilimency on the captives, she wouldn’t be able to find the cottage. The memory of the paper would seem obscured and hazy.

“You’re sure you never heard them using a specific spell to get inside?” Potter asked Luna and Ollivander.

“No,” said Luna. “They tap the door with their wands, that’s all.”

“So it’s nonverbal,” Harry muttered. “We just need to land on the right spell, then.”

“No,” rasped a voice from inside the cell. Luna’s face disappeared from the window, and after a moment’s scraping, Ollivander’s face appeared. He was breathing hard from the effort of standing upright, and every second or two, muscles twitched beneath his thin, wrinkled skin. “I … believe it to be … a wand-native locking spell.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Hermione whispered.

“A what?” said Potter.

“A wand-native locking spell,” Hermione said. “It’s a fairly advanced spell—it ensures that a magical barrier can only be unlocked by certain wands.” She hesitated, biting her lip so hard that Draco saw her lipstick transferring to her teeth. “In this case, the Death Eaters’ wands.”

Draco looked from Hermione to Potter. They couldn’t actually be considering this. Absolutely not. “No,” he said, hating how his voice sounded high and scared.

“We have to try,” Potter said.

“We can’t,” Draco said sharply. “Even if we _do_ steal a wand from the most dangerous people in this place and get the door open, what are we meant to do after that? We’ll get ourselves killed. How does that help anyone?”

Hermione looked conflicted. “It does seem likely we’d all be caught,” she said in a near-whisper.

“We won’t be,” Potter insisted. “They flew in some of the equipment on brooms. We’ll Disillusion Luna and Ollivander. It’s dark enough now that they won’t be seen in the grounds. Then we take a few of those brooms and fly through the gate to avoid a standoff with the guards.”

“We’d still need a way onto the grounds, though,” Hermione said. “You saw the Caterwauling Charm go off earlier. This must be the real reason that Charm’s in place. … We can’t sneak out through a window or side door. We’ll have to leave through the front entrance, and Disillusionment definitely won’t fool the guards in the foyer.”

“What you’ve done is very good,” said Luna appreciatively, looking Hermione and Harry over. “Are you disguised too, Aidan? You don’t sound as old as you look. I would never have known Muggles could do this kind of Transfiguration.”

“Yeah,” Draco said, “but the man who did it is in London, so he’s not much use.”

But Hermione was frowning into the middle distance in that way she did when she had an idea. “Well,” she said, “they aren’t checking the list of names at the manor door. So, if Luna and Ollivander _look_ like guests, they’ll be able to walk right out, in theory.”

Draco stared at Luna and Ollivander, their dirty, stringy hair, their torn and tattered clothes. “How are we supposed to make them look like guests?”

“That’s easy enough,” said Luna. She sounded unnervingly casual, now, chewing a last hors d’oeuvre. “This house must be filled with elegant clothes. If you can find some for us, we can use your wands to cast _Aguamenti_ and wash ourselves. Then we can get dressed and come up with you three.”

Draco could already think of a thousand ways this could go wrong. Which Death Eater’s wand could they steal to get the door open? And what if Bellatrix had given the Greengrass Guard a description of the captives in case of an attempted escape? Could they risk Transfiguring Luna’s or Ollivander’s faces? Security were swatting Probity Probes over everyone who entered the manor, and if they passed too close under Transfiguration while exiting, they’d set them off.

Moreover, what if the brooms had been moved since the start of the gala? Draco supposed they could try to get to his family’s brooms—they’d been told that gala guests were allowed, even encouraged, to enjoy the Malfoys’ substantial grounds, which had been spread with nearly fifteen thousand Christmas lights in spectacular formations. But the Malfoy family brooms weren’t stuffed into some garden shed. They had a collection kept under weather-controlled conditions in the gatehouse, watched by the groundskeeper, Farlough, and even if Draco _had_ been willing to risk telling Farlough he was alive, he knew the man would never have done him a favour in a thousand years, the way Draco had always treated him.

Draco felt another humiliated pang and closed his eyes, aware that every second they waited, Spizzworth’s and Marcus Flint were more likely to notice their absence.

Potter seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “We need to hurry,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Draco, you find some dress robes from the bedrooms. They won’t let guests into the upper floors, and you know the house best. … Hermione, you and I will get a Death Eater’s wand. There are half a dozen of them here. Not Bellatrix, obviously, but Yaxley looks terrible—we might be able to distract him. One of us can do the spilling trick again, and the other can pick his pocket.”

 _No,_ Draco wanted to say. _It’s too dangerous … for Merlin’s sake, it’s barely even a plan._

He glanced back at the window where Luna and Ollivander were watching, though, and then at Hermione, straight-backed and resolved now. He found that he couldn’t make himself say the words.

But neither could he look away from Hermione, from the way she was blinking more often than usual with nerves, from the rise and fall of her shoulders. The fear he’d felt in the front room of headquarters returned twice as strongly, a kind of acceleration, the sensation of flattening himself to a broom handle in a steep dive. If Potter was caught, the Dark Lord would kill him. Probably not without some humiliation, but the Dark Lord would want it to be quick; he wouldn’t want to risk Potter slipping away again. If Draco was caught, the same was probably true.

But Hermione was a Muggle-born. They wouldn’t consider her important enough to call the Dark Lord back to Britain, which meant that if they caught her, she would be Bellatrix’s. If Bellatrix had enjoyed toying with Luna as thanks for the Department of Mysteries, she would unleash that tenfold on Hermione. She’d tear into Hermione’s mind with Legilimency, searching for information about Potter, until there was nothing left. She’d probably invite Yaxley and Crabbe to join in, to get revenge for their humiliation at the Ministry in September.

Draco felt suddenly sick. It was all he could do to keep his voice steady. “I think,” he said, trying to sound coolly rational, “you should take the thing we came for back to headquarters, Hermione. We should keep that safe, shouldn’t we? You go first, and Potter and I can get Luna and Ollivander out alone.”

When Hermione looked at him, her gaze bright and pained, he knew she’d seen right through the excuse.

“I’m not leaving you two here alone,” she said, and the way she was looking at him—the way she sounded as if she were confessing something—it terrified Draco even more. What if this was the last time they ever spoke?

“It’s not a bad idea,” said Potter. “We can’t risk losing it, Hermione.”

“ _No,_ ” she said. To Draco’s alarm, her eyes suddenly looked wet. She glanced away, blinked twice. “No,” she said again, determined now. “We’ll need two people to get the wand. We have to do this together. We’re all going to get out together. Now, come on.” She looked to Luna and Ollivander. “We’ll be back soon,” she said fiercely.

But as they walked up the steps, she slipped her hand into Draco’s and squeezed so hard it hurt. He squeezed back, dreading the moment he would have to let go.

* * *

They parted ways at the foyer. Draco knew distraction was dangerous, but as he climbed the stairs, part of his mind remained on the first floor, following Hermione back into the gala. Right now, were she and Potter scanning the room for Yaxley? How quickly would it be done—how quickly would he know if everything went wrong?

He returned to the kitchen and fetched a tray of wine, then hurried back toward the manor’s centre. Two guards were stationed at the split staircases up to the third storey, but Draco bypassed them and headed for the tiny stairwell concealed in the west wing behind a tapestry of Ara Malfoy, hoping the Lestranges didn’t know to guard it.

He was in luck. As he approached, he saw nobody there. He and his friends had always used this passage to pretend they were Aurors on secret missions in distant countries.

Draco slipped behind the tapestry and climbed toward the third storey. If any more guards were up there, he could claim that one of the Lestranges had ordered him to leave a glass of wine upstairs. A feeble excuse, but they hadn’t planned for any of this; it would be a miracle if any part of this plan hung together.

 _Gryffindors_ , he thought furiously with every step. _Gryffindors and their hero complex, Gryffindors and their … their …_

But he kept losing track of the thought in the image of Luna stumbling wild-eyed through the grounds, mud-splattered, Greyback at her heels. And before he could stop his imagination, it was Hermione in his mind’s eye, running, tripping on a root, trying to scramble back, face drawn in terror.

He climbed faster. When he peeked out from the corresponding tapestry, he found the third floor blessedly deserted.

Draco let out a slow breath. Soon he’d have the disguises; he just had to trust that Hermione and Potter could manage their part, too. Hermione had just stolen a Horcrux from the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister from under two Aurors’ noses, hadn’t she? And hadn’t Potter spent his whole life wriggling out of near-death situations? Surely they could manage nicking a wand.

His dread built, though, as he looked to the westward end of the hall. Ollivander was closer to Draco’s height than his father’s. He’d have to go there after all, to the room he’d wanted to avoid more than any other.

Would the Quidditch paraphernalia still hang on his bedroom walls? The Holyhead Harpies team poster signed personally to him by Gwenog Jones? The Slytherin House banner he’d begged his father to get him when he was six years old? Or would the Lestranges have stripped the place, Bella disgusted by his failure?

Draco steeled himself and strode down the hall.

His hand was on the doorknob when he heard voices inside. His hand wobbled on his tray of glasses. He slid the tray onto the windowsill and leaned closer to the door, pressing his ear to the oak.

His heart plummeted. It was Pansy.

“… you don’t get your hands off his things, Crabbe,” she was saying coldly, “I’ll hex them off for you.”

Crabbe had always been soft-spoken, and his laugh was low and rumbling, like thunder. “Hear that, Nott?” he said. “I think your girlfriend’s still got a candle burning for Draco.”

“Is this why you wanted to come up here, Crabbe?” said Theo’s light tenor, coloured with annoyance. “To go through Draco’s stuff and make fun of us for caring that he died? And here I thought your sense of humour couldn’t get any worse.”

“Oh, stop it for once, you two,” said Millicent Bulstrode’s voice, high and nasal. “Leave it, Vince. Come here.”

“Fine,” said Crabbe, and Draco heard something land with a metallic clatter on a wooden surface, then a loud creak of bedsprings as, presumably, Crabbe sat down beside Millicent. “Only ‘cause you say so.”

Then one of Blaise Zabini’s long, airy sighs. “You two are revolting,” he said in clipped tones.

Draco felt as if he’d drifted out of his body. If his father had managed to retrieve the Prophecy at the end of fifth year, he would have been lounging here with the rest of them, on break from Hogwarts. He wouldn’t have known anything about the Horcruxes, would certainly never have gone into Muggle London. He would have been joking about blood traitors and Muggle-borns and outfits at the gala, casually referencing his father’s Ministry connections. It seemed unreal.

Would he have questioned any of it? Would he have been pleased to see the Carrows torturing the other students, pleased that Hermione and every other Muggle-born had been barred from Hogwarts?

With a sinking feeling, he thought that he probably wouldn’t have cared. It wouldn’t have seemed important at all, next to questions of his own future and status.

“Pass me a drink, Pansy?” said Goyle’s deep bass.

“You don’t need more,” said Pansy, sounding amused now. “What is that, Greg, your eighth one?”

But Draco heard a clink of glass, and heard the smack of lips as Goyle downed whatever she’d handed him.

“‘s just weird, being back here,” Goyle grunted. “In this room, and all.”

“Yeah,” Pansy said.

Draco felt a rush of affection for Pansy and Goyle, then. He’d had two friends, at least, who had really cared about him.

There was a strained silence. Then Goyle said, his voice slurred, “I should’ve gone with him.”

“Not this again,” Crabbe said with disgust. “He told us, stay in the Room of Requirement. No, _ordered_ us. You miss being bossed around like that?”

“He wouldn’t’ve kept doing it once we’d joined up, too.”

“If you believe that,” Crabbe jeered, “you’re as stupid as he thought you were.”

Goyle didn’t answer. Draco closed his eyes, the undercurrent of shame running hotter through him. He’d always joked around with Crabbe and Goyle about the classes they failed, about them being slow on the uptake. They’d always joked about him being small and fragile, hadn’t they? He’d thought it all equalled out, he’d never thought they actually _cared._

“You know what I think?” Millicent said. “I don’t think Draco ever had it in him. I think Dumbledore killed him, and he told us all that Draco’s Killing Curse rebounded just to cover it up.”

Blaise sniffed. “Please, Millie. You think the fuddy-duddy would ever have laid a hand on a student, even to save his own skin?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Crabbe said, sounding impatient now. “The Dark Lord gave Draco a job and he didn’t do it. He deserved what happe—”

There was a scuffling sound, and then a hard, ringing _smack._ Crabbe bellowed with surprise.

“Take it back,” Pansy snarled. “You take it back, you—!”

“What is _wrong_ with you?” Millicent gasped. “Get off—”

“Pansy,” multiple voices said at once, alarmed.

“You’re crazy,” Crabbe spat. “You’ve gone off the bloody wall, Parkinson. Acting like a blood traitor this whole term—I bet that’s why they put your parents in Azkaban, to teach you a lesson!”

“Oh, yeah?” Pansy shrieked. “Blood traitor, am I? At least I don’t swallow everything those half-blood Carrow idiots tell me! At least _my_ parents didn’t let Harry Potter and that Mudblood waltz out of the Ministry of bloody Magic! _Your_ father’s still hurting from that, isn’t he?”

“You shut your fat mouth about—” Crabbe snarled.

“Pansy,” Blaise cut in, his lofty tones letting on a rare hint of caution. “You should be careful what you—”

“I don’t want to hear it from _you,_ Blaise,” she snapped. “ _You_ need to stop pretending none of this has anything to do with you. I thought this was all supposed to make our lives better. Wasn’t it? That’s what they said! All our parents said once the Dark Lord was in power, everything would be so much better, we’d be safer. Do you feel safer?”

There was a silence. “Do _you_ , Theo?” she demanded.

“Can we not talk about this right now?” Theo muttered.

Pansy let out a mirthless laugh. “Well, that’s a huge surprise. What about you, Millie? _Well?_ ”

“I feel safe,” Crabbe sneered. “I feel safe because I can keep my mouth shut, unlike you.”

“No,” Pansy snapped back, “you feel safe because you’re an idiot, Crabbe. You think if he’ll let the _Malfoys_ die out, one of the oldest bloodlines in Britain, he’ll give a damn about you and your dad and your _loyalty?_ Didn’t he have that nutter Lestrange torture him into a bed at Mungo’s for a week in September?”

“If _Madam_ Lestrange knew you were talking like this in her house,” said Crabbe’s voice, softer and more dangerous now, “you’d be in for it.”

“So what are you going to do, Vince?” It was Goyle talking now. Draco had never heard Goyle talk to Crabbe like this—his slow voice hard with anger. “What? You going to turn her in? Our best friend?”

There was a long silence. Draco came back into himself. God, how long had he been standing here, when down in the hearth room, Hermione and Potter were risking everything to get a wand? He snatched the tray back off the windowsill and rapped on the door.

Heavy footsteps. Then Goyle pulled the door wide. Draco still wasn’t quite prepared for the sight of them all, the six people he’d thought would be his closest friends for the rest of his life. They stood scattered throughout his bedroom, which looked identical to the way he’d left it: his black oak sleigh bed with its soft grey sheets, the Holyhead Harpies standing in a regiment with hands clasped behind their backs, posters of Viktor Krum and the Irish Chasers from the last World Cup. A set of his robes was hanging off the high-backed chair in front of his mahogany desk. He might have just left after Easter Break for the last few weeks of sixth year.

“Yeah?” grunted Goyle, looking down at Draco with shifty eyes.

“Is there a _Theodore Nott_ here?” Draco said, forcing his voice through his nose, trying to emulate Professor Sprout’s accent.

“That’s me,” said Theo, standing from the desk chair. He’d grown a few inches since last year, although he was still only an inch or two taller than Pansy. She was wearing green and grey silk and spared Draco a single disinterested glance. By the dresser, Crabbe had his arm around Millicent’s waist, and Blaise was inspecting one of Draco’s bookshelves, taller than ever and perfectly postured, not even bothering to turn around.

“Your father and his associates,” Draco said to Theo, “have requested that you and your friends return to the gala.”

Theo sighed, slipping his arm around Pansy’s shoulders. “Probably time for the speech. Come on, you lot.” He waved everyone else out of the room, so that he and Pansy exited last. As they passed, Draco saw with a twist in his stomach that her cheek was scored and scabbed.

He watched them go. Pansy and Theo were a distance behind the others, and Draco heard her hiss to Theo, “It’d be great if you could take my side for once.”

“It’d be great,” Theo hissed back, “if _you_ could seem to care about me more than someone who’s been dead for six months, _for once_.”

She shrugged his arm off her and strode forward. Theo’s steps faltered, and Draco watched him stop and let out a breath, his shoulders sinking. Then he hurried after her. They turned the corner and were gone.

* * *

“There!” Harry whispered. Hermione followed his sightline and saw Yaxley across the ballroom in conversation with two portly, balding men. Almost instantly, the Death Eater was obscured by moving bodies. The huge room was packed now, and the music had become more lively. A sea of colourfully dressed people were laughing and dancing in front of the stage.

“Let’s go,” Harry said.

“But …” Hermione hesitated, but of course, there was nothing to wait for. In fact, every moment they waited, she risked being seen by Flint, who was standing on the edge of the sea of dancers, wearing a look of mutinous anger that frankly scared Hermione. She’d already had to shift behind Harry twice to hide from him.

“Reminds me of Slughorn’s party,” said Harry under his breath, and Hermione, with disbelief, saw his beard twitching with amusement. “You know. You trying to shake off McLaggen.”

“How can you think of that now?” Hermione hissed.

Harry grinned. As they moved toward Yaxley, she shifted again to avoid Umbridge, who, nearby, was leaning a bit too heavily on a side table. Umbridge was speaking to none other than Percy Weasley, who didn’t look nearly as pompous as usual. He looked uncomfortable, a bit nervous.

Soon they were hardly ten feet from Yaxley. The Death Eater _did_ look awful, hollow-cheeked and swaying on the spot as if he might collapse. “All right,” Harry said, serious again. “You take a glass. Spill it on him when you’re passing to the left—just there—and I’ll go around the other side. I think I see his wand.”

“Yes,” Hermione breathed. “I do, too. In his right pocket.” She swept a glass of pale blue wine from his tray, her heart pounding. “Ooh, let’s hurry, my hands are shaking.”

“Okay,” Harry said. “I’ll circle around now. You count to three and follow me. All right?”

Hermione nodded, and Harry moved forward, holding the tray of glasses aloft. _One … two …_

She drew a deep breath and strode after him, affixing Marilea’s haughty expression back onto her face. Just as she passed Yaxley, she made herself trip on her own heel, and gasped as the wine poured onto Yaxley’s shoulder.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” she said as Yaxley sputtered and lifted his arm. “Here.” She drew her wand and flicked it, and a tendril of blue wine drew out from the shoulder of his robes, back into her wine glass. Yaxley opened his mouth, but Hermione said idly, “Do excuse me,” and passed him by as if she were in a hurry to get to the stage.

Moments later, Harry nudged his way out of the crowd to her side. “Got it!” he hissed. “He’ll notice it’s gone soon. Hurry.”

They cut back through the ballroom, Hermione at Harry’s heel. The room had begun to smell like sweat. The band were playing a fast, bright number, and the many silver, red, and green lamps had dimmed. As they slipped between dancing couples and groups in circles, Hermione could see the marble of the foyer floor. Almost there …

Then a hand shot out from the crowd and fastened around Hermione’s wrist.

She spun around to see Flint staring down at her. “Where have you been?” he said, dragging her deeper into the crowd, anger and hurt curling his features into a snarl. His hand was tight enough to bruise on her arm. “Three different people have asked if you ditched me, and I had to pretend like it was funny.”

“Marcus,” Hermione gasped, thinking fast. Pain was shooting up her arm from his grip. It felt as if he was bending her bones. “P-please don’t make a scene. I was just trying to find you to ask if we could leave. I’ve just been really sick in the bathroom. I think it was the crab.”

“Oh,” said Flint, letting her wrist go. She grabbed her hand back to her chest and rubbed the spot he’d clamped onto, no longer feeling at all guilty for the charade. Watching her rubbing her wrist, he didn’t even look sorry. If anything, he looked sceptical, like he couldn’t believe his crushing grip could actually have hurt her. After all Flint’s posturing about his _good upbringing,_ at the end of the day, he was still the bully from the Quidditch field, ready to lean on his size and strength the instant he felt slighted.

“Fine, then,” he grunted. “We’ll go after the Minister’s speech. Department head’s told us we’re not to leave before that.”

“All right.” Hermione chanced a glance back. Harry was still lingering near the threshold to the foyer. _Go,_ she mouthed at him, glaring. _Go! Now!_

She looked back to the stage just as the band finished the song. There was clapping and whistling, and the sweaty lead singer said, his voice amplified over the crowd, “Thank you, Ministry of Magic!”

More cheering and hooting. The band traipsed off the stage, and Hermione’s eyes caught a flash of fuchsia in the bright lights. Umbridge, she realised, was about to introduce the Minister.

Then there was a sudden shout of alarm. Umbridge had tried to go up the stairs to the stage, and near the top, she’d stumbled, falling backward.

Hermione felt a hard lurch. Had the spells gone wrong? But how _could_ they have? She’d practiced them so many times on Harry and Draco …

All the breath went out of her. That was precisely it: she’d grown accustomed to weeks’ practice on Harry and Draco, both of whom were a good foot taller than Umbridge and accordingly heavier. The Confundus was a proportion-responsive spell, and in the moment, juggling half a dozen other enchantments, Hermione hadn’t weighted it correctly to someone of Umbridge’s size.

One of the Aurors was shouting, waving his arms to clear guests away from the steps. The other was passing his wand across Umbridge’s face, apparently performing a diagnostic spell.

Any moment now they would recognise signs of spell damage. They would identify, then break Hermione’s Memory Charms. … They wouldn’t be able to see that she’d taken the Horcrux, as Umbridge had been unconscious then—but they would see her in Umbridge’s memory, barging into the W.C.

She had to get out now.

Hermione didn’t even bother making an excuse to Flint, who was craning his neck like all the others to see what was happening to Umbridge. She took a few steps backward, then turned—

She knocked right into Yaxley.

“There you are, girl,” he said, eyes narrowed, looking more off-kilter than ever. “Where’s my wand?”

“I—wh-what?”

“You took it when you spilled that drink. Now, where is it?”

“Did I—what are—don’t be ridiculous,” she blustered, drawing her own wand. “What would I want with _your_ wand?” But her fear had come into her voice, and she’d lost Marilea completely, and now Yaxley was staring at her with new eyes.

“You,” he breathed.

Even as he said it, a magically amplified voice rang out over the crowd. “ _Guards, seal the doors. There has been an attack on the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister._ ”

* * *

Draco let out a relieved breath when the door at the top of the steps opened. “Did you get it?” he hissed, but as a wand burst into light, only one set of footsteps ran down toward him.

“Potter,” Draco said. “Where is she? Where’s Hermione?”

“She’s fine,” Potter gasped, breaking out of his run at the bottom of the steps. “She’s trying to shake off Flint, she told me to go ahead. Did you get the disguises?”

“Yeah. They’ve already used my wand to clean themselves up. They’re getting dressed now.”

“Great. I’ve got Yaxley’s wand here.” Potter pulled out a wand, stepped up to the door, and hesitated. Draco felt the same dread he knew Potter was feeling. What if it hadn’t been spelled to accept Yaxley’s wand specifically? What if Ollivander’s hunch had been wrong altogether? …

But when Potter said, “ _Alohomora!”_ the great door swung open.

Potter flew inside. He swept Luna into a hard, tight hug, then broke away from her. Draco got a good look at the captives for the first time. Both looked substantially improved: Ollivander had on a set of Draco’s black dress robes, and Luna was wearing one of his mother’s pale blue dresses, which fit adequately. They’d taken off the filth with _Scourgify_ and used _Aguamenti_ to rinse themselves. Still, their hair was wet and stringy, and Ollivander looked even more gaunt in the black robes.

“Hello, Harry,” Luna said with a slightly vacant smile. “It’s working well, isn’t it? I think Mr. Ollivander and I will need a bit more work to pass for guests, though. Could you do a Drying Charm on my hair, and maybe we could cut his beard…”

“Good idea.” Fumbling his wand out, Potter looked back. “Draco, can you go and get the brooms ready, so that when Hermione gets away from Flint, we’re all ready to leave?”

“Yeah.” Draco ran back up the stairs, taking them two at a time, his scalp itching with sweat beneath Leo Clifton’s wig and his cheeks itching furiously from the fake beard. He couldn’t believe they’d gotten this far, but Luna was right—the plan had almost worked. They were almost out of the manor’s clutches, all five of them.

Then he came into the foyer and found it empty. The Greengrass Guards had deserted their posts. Shouts were coming from the hearth room.

Draco’s stomach plummeted. The sound twisted as it snaked out from the threshold into the foyer, but he could make out the words. _“She’s there—there!”_

Fear flooded him. He didn’t think. He just flung himself across the foyer in a flat-out sprint, pell-mell into the hearth room.

His feet skidded on the parquet floors. He knocked guests out of the way, struggling through the crowd. Indignant cries shot through the commotion.

“I have her!” roared a voice. “It’s her—it’s the Mudblood—Potter’s Mudblood!” Draco knew it was Yaxley’s voice even before the crowd shifted in front of him, and he saw them, ten feet ahead. Yaxley had Hermione’s wand in his hand. She was on the floor in front of him as if she’d just been flung down, a scratch on her cheek and her prosthetics torn half away, rage and terror in her face.

Draco saw Yaxley’s mouth form the word: “ _Cruci—”_

Draco saw white. “ _Stupefy!_ ” he yelled wildly. The red jet of light tore through the semidarkness and struck Yaxley in the jaw, blasting him off his feet. But Draco wasn’t the only one who’d shouted. An Impediment jinx had jetted out of the crowd from the wand of a tall black girl Draco recognised from—of all places—the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The jinx streaked past Yaxley and collided with one of the Greengrass Guard who was trying to force through to Hermione.

The spells shocked the crowd. People were screaming, trying to get to the exit. Draco fought against the current. He shoved past people in fine dress robes, spilling expensive drinks everywhere, and then he was breaking into the small open area around Hermione and dropping to his knees beside her, in front of the hearth where the Dark Lord had ground him down into nothing—but she was safe. Wasn’t she? Had Yaxley done anything before he’d arrived?

“Hermione,” he said roughly, out of breath. “Hermione?”

“Draco,” she whispered, clawing her dangling prosthetics away from her face. “I’m fine, I’m all right.”

“Good. Here—” He snatched her wand out of Yaxley’s motionless hand and passed it to her, and they both leapt to their feet.

“They’re here!” screamed an older wizard nearby, waving his hands. “The Mudblood’s here! Help!”

Hermione sent a Silencing Charm at him, but the damage was done. There was a flash in the corner of Draco’s eye. A jet of light shot toward him out of nowhere, and as he whirled around to block it, he saw uniformed figures all throughout the crowd getting closer, slipping through knots of Ministry workers.

Hermione had gone rigid with fear. Draco seized her forearm. “We’ve got to run!” he shouted over the redoubled screams from the crowd. “Come on!”

Even as they tried to flee down the length of the hearth, though, Draco knew it was no good. There were hundreds of people between them and the threshold, a distance that seemed like a mile, and the place was crawling with not just guards but Aurors and Death Eaters.

Now the crowd cover was failing them, too. The guests shoved back from Draco and Hermione, exposing them. As the clear space around them widened, half a dozen guards burst through at once. Their faces were triumphant, their wands raised. Draco and Hermione froze as spells tore toward them, but before they could block, before Draco could even think an incantation, a voice he didn’t recognise yelled, “ _Parasalvus!_ ”

A plump black-haired woman flew out of the crowd and conjured a curved barrier in front of Draco and Hermione. Off it bounced four, then five of the Greengrass Guards’ spells; one rebounded on a guard and Stunned her where she stood. A man with a thatch of blond hair emerged too, planting his substantial figure before Draco and Hermione and felling another guard with a jet of blue light.

“Tonks,” Hermione breathed, “Sturgis—no—you can’t!”

“Can.” The black-haired woman glanced back just long enough to give Hermione a wink, her face alight with adrenalin. Then she whirled back around, blocked a searing stream of heat, and sent a hex zigzagging back toward the Auror who had cast it. Draco’s wand faltered—Merlin, he hadn’t realised his cousin could duel like _this_. The clumsy, affable youth was gone, replaced by a fighter who flung her wand out as if she were hurling a javelin, the sheer power of her spells making the floorboards bend and whine.

New energy rushed through Draco’s veins, and Hermione seemed to feel it too, for they both began to fight with twice as much ferocity, the four of them inching steadily toward the exit. They immobilised two Aurors, then three—a guard to the left—another dead ahead. Sturgis and Hermione cast up protective enchantments while Draco and Tonks went on the offensive. Soon Draco realised the girl from the Quidditch team—Johnson, that was her name—Johnson and Oliver Wood were nearby, too, yelling spells that ricocheted off the mantel, adding to the confusion. Draco thought he heard other voices from around the hearth room, secret loyalists to the Order, calling out to the guards from distant corners, “No, they’re over here!”

“This way!”

“I see her here!”

But the battle was beyond containment now. Blocked spells were rebounding onto Ministry officials left and right, some of whom were trying to block, too, inadvertently casting their own flashes of light. Draco caught a whiff of smoke, looked up, and realised that the banners on the walls had caught fire from the volleying spells. Within seconds, they were roaring with flame, the words _MAGIC IS MIGHT!_ flashing in garish shades as they burned to shreds, the flames licking and crawling up the ivory paint toward the crown moulding.

“Fire! FIRE!” A chorus of screams rang off the curved ceiling, and the crowd exploded from a frenzy into outright pandemonium. Multiple people yanked open the French windows at the opposite wall, and as the Caterwauling Charm wailed pointlessly overhead, guests vaulted out over the windowsills. Some guards and Aurors were shooting jets of water upward, but the flames were coursing over the old wood and paint too eagerly, hissing and climbing and refusing to extinguish. Dozens of people were flooding out into the foyer, emptying the hearth room, leaving Draco, Hermione, Tonks, and Sturgis dangerously visible—but just as Rodolphus Lestrange and Alistair Crabbe shoved out of the mob, roaring with triumph at the sight of them, two more people dived in front of Draco and Hermione.

It was Arthur and Molly Weasley, wands drawn, blocking and casting spells with a speed and ferocity Draco couldn’t have imagined from them. And almost at once, another voice yelled, “ _Mum! Dad_!” and another redhead burst from the crowd, stumbling into place beside his parents—Percy Weasley.

“Percy!” sobbed Mrs. Weasley as her son raised his wand and joined the fray. They were only ten feet from the door now, and getting ever closer—but just as Draco thought they might make it out, his heart seemed to stop beating.

Six people had blocked the threshold. Crabbe and Goyle, Blaise and Theo, Millicent and Pansy.

Their eyes were all fixed on Hermione’s partially visible face, and every one of them looked stunned. Amid the uproar, there was an instant’s silence between all the seventh-years.

Then someone behind them bellowed, _“Reducto!”_ They all ducked as one. The hex shot over their heads, and as if in slow-motion, Draco watched the jet of red light tear out into the foyer, up, up—and connect with the seventeenth-century crystal chandelier.

There was an icy peal, a resounding shatter, as it was blasted from its hook and exploded in mid-air. Fragments of crystal shot everywhere, hitting the marble like a thunderstorm, studding into the walls in rapid-fire. Hermione’s voice screamed, “ _Protego!”_ but Draco hadn’t even thought of his wand, he’d just yanked her into him, shielding her body with his.

The last remnants of the gala crowd flooded forward, the current washing Draco and Hermione out into the foyer along with allies and attackers alike. They slipped in the sea of crystal shards, Draco’s arm still around Hermione’s waist, the marble gleaming beneath their feet. “ _Stupefy!”_ Draco gasped, making a guard topple backward, as the fight collected around the enormous Christmas tree, the scent of pine washing over them, ornaments tinkling and bursting overhead.

Then Draco heard her from somewhere behind him. He heard Bellatrix’s scream. “Out of my way! Where is the Mudblood? _Out of my way!”_

Screams and bangs in the hearth room as Bellatrix blasted guests out of her path. Ahead, Draco heard Potter’s voice now, too, shouting, _“Protego! PROTEGO!”_ Draco’s stomach dropped, and he prayed that Potter would have the sense not to use _Expelliarmus_ and give his identity away. His gaze raked across the melee. Crabbe and Millicent were bellowing curses. Goyle, Theo, and Millicent were duelling Wood and Johnson. Tonks, Sturgis, and the three Weasleys were fending off guards, but—where was Hermione?

Fear shot through Draco again. They’d been separated. Had she been hit? She must be around the circumference of the massive tree—

As Draco struggled around the edge of the tree, ducking spells, shielding his face from shattering ornaments, he saw Hermione, ten feet away, holding off Blaise and Theo. And directly in front of Draco, taking aim at Hermione’s back, was Pansy, cold determination on her face. Draco knew that no matter how she’d rebelled against the Carrows, no matter how she felt isolated from the Dark Lord’s cause, she would never betray the Death Eaters and the Ministry in front of everyone she knew, not for a Muggle-born girl she’d hated at school.

“ _Petrif—”_ Pansy started to cry.

“Pansy, stop!” Draco yelled.

He didn’t realise what he was doing until it was already done. He’d spoken in his own voice.

Pansy’s whole body went rigid. Then she turned, and her eyes locked on his, and the colour drained out of her face.

“Stop,” he panted again.

Pansy looked terrified, uncomprehending. Her eyes were flooding with tears, her wand still outstretched, shaking now. “Dr … Drac—”

“ _Descendo!_ ” snarled Crabbe’s voice. They both looked up as the twenty-foot-high Christmas tree groaned, swaying perilously. A dozen Greengrass Guards cried out stabilising charms and hover charms, retreating up the grand carpeted staircase out of the battle.

Then Hermione shoved past Blaise, the scratch on her cheek bleeding freely now. Her eyes met Draco’s, and they lunged for each other, their hands fastening around each other’s wrists. “Come on!” Hermione cried, pulling him forward toward something. He saw them just ahead, in a gap in the fighting: Potter, Luna, and Ollivander. He and Hermione burst forward, scattering a group of Ministry officials who were firing off spells in apparently random directions, confusion and fear on their faces. When Draco looked back, he saw that the rest of their allies had fallen into a formation behind them, fanned out and blocking spells from the threshold, from up the steps, from side halls. Pansy had disappeared.

Potter let out a triumphant yell as he saw the host of allies. Draco and Hermione skidded to a halt beside him. Ollivander was trembling but protected in the centre of their circle, Luna supporting him with her left arm and firing off shaky spells with Yaxley’s wand in her right.

They battled toward the manor doors, gaining ground, nearly out in the night. … _Almost there,_ Draco thought. _Come on …_

Then Crabbe’s deep voice bellowed something—or maybe it was his father; they sounded so similar now—and an inferno tore across the marble. Fifteen-foot-high flames seared across the panelled walls and flooded onto ancient oils in gilt frames. They caught the woven and painted images of Malfoys past. They created a white-hot wall between the fight and the door into the night, cutting off the exit.

Whatever Crabbe had done, though, he didn’t seem to have control over it. The flames were rising higher, chasing each other, growing, mutating, transforming into great beasts of fire and light.

“Oh, my—” Hermione gasped. She choked on the words and began to cough. Draco cast a Clean Air Charm, but as they both caught their breath, as they spun back around to take in the foyer, Draco’s heart plummeted. The tree had caught fire. It went up with a sucking, tearing sound, every green needle flaring in an immense rush of heat. It teetered backward—seemed to hang suspended for a perilous second—and impacted the grand steps with an almighty _CRASH._

The final guests had fled back into the hearth room to escape through the windows. The foyer was nothing but a warzone now, and a fresh wave of the Greengrass Guard were vaulting the balcony and pouring out of side halls. Aurors spilled out of the hearth room in teams. At their forefront was Bellatrix.

“ _Crucio!”_ she screamed. The jet of light streaked twenty feet and connected. Arthur Weasley fell back, yelling in pain.

“No!” howled Percy, sending a spell back at Bellatrix. She broke the Cruciatus to block, laughing madly now, her eyes alight with reflected flame, coming ever nearer. And at their backs, the wall of fire roared higher, burned hotter. Draco cast Stunner after Stunner across the foyer, his lungs aching. Hermione Transfigured a shattered bust into a thin plaster wall that exploded with the impact of several attacks at once. His hand sought hers desperately, and she clutched to him, too, and he knew this was it. They were all about to be slaughtered where they stood.

Then Potter’s voice burst through the noise, furious and determined.

“All together!” he yelled. “Ready—set— _NOW!_ ”

He didn’t have to explain. They all knew what to do. They all spun from their duels as one. “ _Aguamenti!_ ” Draco yelled with the rest of them, and something seemed to ignite inside him as he heard his voice joined with Hermione’s, with Potter’s and Luna’s and the Weasleys’, with Tonks’s and Sturgis’s and Johnson’s and Wood’s. And there was one more voice in the mix. Pansy had reappeared on Draco’s other side, her wand outstretched, screaming the spell, too.

A blast of water shot through the fire, so hard that the elegant manor doors were shattered clean out of their frames, blasted down the steps and onto the gravel. For a few precious seconds, there was a black hole in the wall of flame, a rush of icy night air in the ocean of furious heat, and the twelve of them all tore through it, flooding out into the open.

As Draco sprinted down the steps, he cast a look back. The fire was already climbing back up, devouring their tunnel, but for a single moment he saw the foyer. He saw the Christmas tree pointing up the stairs like a white-hot arrow, and the carpets like a red-orange sea that flickered and spat, and the walls racing with streamers of flame, and the banisters catching, too, the hardwood cracking like bones breaking. Anything that moved was shadow, and figures fled back into the hearth room, casting protective spells around themselves while around them the inferno gambolled and played. Dragons and chimaeras and lions burst out of the fire and melted back into it, surged down hallways, latched onto billowing curtains. The fire was a howl, a sucking scream. It was eating away at the façade. It was tearing Malfoy Manor limb from limb.

Draco faced forward again and stumbled, coughing and hacking with the others, onto the gravel. The world was a sea of smoke. Draco saw the red hair of the three Weasleys, he saw Pansy’s dress and Sturgis carrying Ollivander in his arms like a child.

Hermione’s hand was still in his, sweating and trembling, and Draco held tight to her, but he forced himself upright and stared through the grey darkness, half-blind, hunting for the windows.

There they were, half a dozen arcs of yellow light: the windows of the hearth room, through which were pouring the stream of guards, and Aurors, and Death Eaters. They were levitating out the unconscious bodies of their fellows, putting out uniforms that had caught fire—and now they were pointing to the entrance.

“Run,” Draco yelled, but his voice was weak and ragged from the smoke.

“Run!” Hermione yelled with him, seeing them too. Together their voices were enough. They all propelled themselves into an exhausted run down the gravel path, following the last trail of the guests. Fifty metres ahead, at the end of the drive, people were pouring through the gates and _CRACK, CRACK, CRACK—_ Disapparating en masse.

“ _No!”_ Hermione cried out, crashing into Draco’s side just in time to knock him out of the way of a jet of white light. They both crashed into one of the hedges and emerged scraped, clutching to each other.

“Are you all right?” Hermione gasped, looking him over wild-eyed. “Are you—”

“Fine, yeah, it didn’t—” His thumb smeared the blood shakily from her cheek— “I’m fine—”

But as they stumbled back into their run and looked back, Draco saw that the air was thick with spells. Their enemies had coalesced at the top of the drive and were ploughing mercilessly downward, sending a rain of light toward them.

And they were beginning to meet their marks. “No!” howled a voice, and Draco looked over to see Potter running toward the motionless body of Oliver Wood. Was he dead?—stunned?—Draco couldn’t tell.

Someone crashed into Potter, shoving him back toward Luna and Ollivander. It was Arthur Weasley.

“Go,” Mr. Weasley shouted wildly. “Shell Cottage, Hermione!” He spun back around as the others conjured a massive stone wall into place. The ground shook as the wall erupted upward, blocking the full width of the drive. The cascade of spells crashed into the barricade’s other side with a sound like a bomb going off, and Draco couldn’t see Pansy anymore—was she on the other side? Mr. Weasley lifted his own wand to aid with the Transfiguration, reinforcing the wall, even as blasting spells from the other side took chunks out of it. Fragments of rock whizzed in all directions.

“You four,” yelled Mrs. Weasley, “take Ollivander and _run_ , _now!_ ”

“But—” Hermione gasped.

“ _Go!_ ” screamed Tonks and Angelina at the same time.

Draco didn’t need telling again. He grabbed Hermione’s hand and sprinted forward, joining Luna and meeting Potter, who had hoisted Ollivander onto his back, the wandmaker as frail as a child but clinging on for dear life. They tore down the last stretch of the drive and Draco’s heart slammed like a mallet to a drum. The drive was empty now except for the guards at the gate, whose numbers had shrunk from six to two.

They all lifted their wands and cast spells over and over, dodging the guards’ attacks, as they approached the gate. The guards were outnumbered two to one. Luna’s _Impedimenta_ knocked one down, and then Hermione’s _Petrificus Totalus_ the other—and at last the way was open.

They spilled out of the gate onto the country lane. _CRACK—_ Luna, Potter, and Ollivander were gone at once. But Draco hesitated, and so did Hermione, her hand in his, and as one they turned for a split instant, and Draco saw it there upon the hilltop for what he knew was the last time: Malfoy Manor, ablaze from west wing to east, lit up to its farthest reaches like a beacon in the black night, swallowing itself with a distant roar, blinding and falling and somehow never more beautiful—consumed, in its last moments, by light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cool well that was the most fun i've ever had
> 
> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	19. Pansy's Perjury

Pansy supposed it was pain, the thing she was feeling. Yes, that was it. Her knees hurt from digging into the gravel for so long, and her sprained ankle was throbbing.

The pain couldn’t quite penetrate, though. Nothing had for a while. She was barely listening to the voices swimming around her.

_“… blood traitor scum, tell us where they’ve gone!”_

Pansy looked blankly over at the figure writhing and kicking on the gravel. A redheaded woman. The Weasleys’ mother. Her limbs looked so strange, disarranged that way, and there was blood all down her sleeve. Her husband and son were begging, their voices confused in the smoky air.

“Madam Lestrange,” panted an ash-smeared Auror. “The courier’s arrived with the Veritaserum.”

Bellatrix Lestrange raised her wand to lift the curse, and Mrs. Weasley slumped, insensate and heaving, to the ground. “Good,” Bellatrix spat, casting a venomous look at the seven other people still kneeling in a line on the gravel.

Well, six were kneeling. Oliver Wood was slumped unconscious to Pansy’s left, blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. Pansy wondered if he was dying. She’d limped past a dead man earlier. His skin had been burned in so many variegated shades that he’d looked as if he’d been quilted together.

Pansy looked up at Bellatrix. Her dress robes were singed and torn, her dark hair a chaos as formless as the smoke. Pansy knew she should look away; one didn’t _stare_ at Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord’s right hand. Yet Pansy didn’t feel afraid to do it, or even defiant. She’d felt nearly nothing since the battle.

She hadn’t panicked when Rodolphus Lestrange had dragged her out of the crowd, snarling that he’d seen what she’d done, filthy little traitor, helping them escape. She hadn’t felt angry or ashamed when he’d flung her to the ground between Wood and the Prewett woman. Pansy should have been appalled to be grouped in with blood traitors like these, but all that high emotion had extinguished, like a flame that had burned itself out.

The Aurors, who had started to administer Veritaserum at the other end of the line, were swearing, muttering something about Memory Charms. Pansy wasn’t really listening. Her friends were ten feet away on the grass. They all looked like strangers, even Greg, tall and thick-necked, a shiny burn blistering on the side of his neck, Greg whom she’d known since the cradle. … Greg, whose father had been levitated off on a stretcher, unresponsive.

Vincent was trying to say something to him. Greg wasn’t looking at him, wasn’t answering.

Theo, though … Theo was watching Pansy, his hair grey with ash. _What do you think?_ he’d murmured to her before the speech had been meant to happen. _Want to stay and hear about what good members of society we are? Or we could go back to mine. Dad won’t get away from all this for a couple more hours._

It had been an offer of forgiveness, after the way she’d acted in Draco’s room. Theo was always ready to forgive her, but Pansy never felt grateful for it. She didn’t want cycles of anger and absolution. She wanted the kind of innate understanding that feels like breathing.

She’d thought, given enough time, she could find that with Theo, but maybe not. Their relationship had always been tumultuous—lash and backlash and mutual sensitivity. Nothing like … like …

For a split instant her eyes strayed to the smouldering wreck of Malfoy Manor. She felt a sharp pang like a stiletto knife between her ribs.

Two people crunched to a halt in front of Pansy: an Auror with delicate features distorted by anger, and a scribe holding quill and parchment. Before Pansy could even react, the Auror took Pansy’s chin in her fingers, wrenched her mouth open, and shook three clear drops from a vial onto Pansy’s tongue.

The effect was instantaneous. All thoughts of the manor, of him, evaporated. Pansy’s mind became a hollow chamber.

The closest thing she’d felt to the effect of the potion was the Imperius Curse in fourth year, but while that had been hazy and dreamlike, a sensation of delicious relief, this was harsh and depersonalising. She was a book to be read, now, a pile of documents to rifle through. There was nothing to her except what she could give them.

The scribe knelt at her side, spelling his quill to create a transcript. “You are Pansy Parkinson, seventeen?” the Auror said, her eyes boring into her.

The truth seemed to roll itself off her tongue, it was gravitational. “Yes.”

“Ms. Parkinson,” the Auror said coldly, “your responses to these questions will be used in your hearing with the Wizengamot. Are you allied with the organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix?”

“No.”

The Auror hesitated. “Do you have any information about any plans, secrets, or workings of the Order of the Phoenix?”

“No.”

“You attended Hogwarts School with the Mudblood Hermione Granger. Has she contacted you in any way since she attended Hogwarts School?”

“No.”

The Auror was frowning now. She exchanged a look with the scribe, who muttered, “Another Memory Charm, maybe?”

“She didn’t run with the others,” the Auror said. “She’d have had to cast it on herself. Get her wand from Runcorn and try Priori Incantatem.”

The scribe nodded and strode back into the smoky night. Hardly a minute later, he returned, shaking his head. “No Obliviation,” he said.

“Hmm.” The Auror turned her dark, piercing eyes back on Pansy. “But you did cast _Aguamenti_ tonight alongside members of the Order of the Ph—”

Another voice broke in: “It was only that one spell.”

The Auror rounded on Theo, who’d taken half a step out of the group gathered on the grass. At first the Auror looked ready to snap, but then her eyes found Mr. Nott, standing not far from his son and immediately recognisable.

She settled for a curt, “Quiet, please. This record will be used in court for—”

“We were with her the whole night, though.” Now Greg was speaking up, apparently emboldened by Theo. “She was on our side the entire fight. It _was_ only one spell.”

Millicent and Crabbe stayed silent, Crabbe’s eyes flicking toward his father, but after a moment, Blaise nodded, too. “It’s true,” he said. “Maybe she just wanted to escape. We were all trying to by then.”

Distantly, Pansy realised she felt grateful to Theo, Greg, and Blaise. That gratitude seemed to snag in her mind. … Yes, there was a reason she wanted to speak around the circumstances, she remembered … but what was it?

The empty simplicity of the truth quavered.

_Pansy, stop …_

_Stop._

Draco’s voice ricocheted. Rather than fading like an echo, it amplified, scything through the blankness of the Veritaserum.

Draco, alive these past seven months, apparently working for the Order of the Phoenix. Draco, without whom Pansy had felt like a moon flung out of orbit, hunting for some new anchor, finding nothing except vacuum.

She felt as if her whole head had jarred, like she’d been struck by a heavy object. Lucid thoughts burst into the void of her mind. Soon, the Auror would ask _why_ Pansy had helped the Order escape—and she would have to confess that Draco was alive.

He was a traitor to the Death Eaters. He would be hunted down and murdered.

The potion pushed against her thoughts, trying to clear them away, but Pansy fought. _No,_ she thought, something kicking to life in her. No. … Part of her was livid with Draco, wanted to scream and rage at him for letting her believe he was dead—but she could never betray him.

“It’s true,” the Auror said slowly, “that you spent the earlier part of the battle fighting against Granger and her accomplices?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you admit you broke ranks to cast the _Aguamenti_ charm?”

“Yes,” Pansy said. Long strings of thought were forming now, slow and foggy, yet determined. She tried to think of a way to obfuscate … she could hold the intention in her head, but it was acutely painful, as if she were forcing herself to lower her own hand over a flame … still, she had some control, as long as she stayed within the bounds of the truth.

 _Strategy,_ she thought. All her life Pansy had been raised to think strategically. Her parents had always pointed out her assets like breeders examining a thoroughbred. Not the brainiest, they’d told her when she was eight or nine, but you’ve got more drive than others, and that’s always useful. Not the most beautiful, they’d said in her fourth year, but you’re confident, and people like to see confidence, because it makes them feel confident in you. This was the way into the life you wanted: to know yourself, and to know how to wield yourself like a weapon.

No, she couldn’t lie under Veritaserum. But Pansy was seventeen, and she knew she looked a fragile, shaky wreck in the tatters of her dress robes and her slack expression. These could be weapons of a kind.

She saw the path forward, though it would be a painful path to claw through. Yes, she would tell the truth. She would tell so much truth that it would hide the only truth that mattered.

“Is your friend right?” the Auror asked. “Did you cast the charm so that you could escape the manor yourself?”

“No.”

“Then tell me.” Cold anger seeped back into the Auror’s voice. “Why did you help the Order escape?”

“Because of Draco,” said Pansy.

“Draco?” the Auror repeated.

“He was the Malfoys’ son,” the scribe supplied, his quill scratching across the page of its own accord. “That boy who died at Hogwarts in May.”

“What does he have to do with it?” the Auror said to Pansy.

“I’ve had nightmares almost every night since his funeral,” Pansy said, her voice still flat and recitative. “I wake up and see him in the dark. I see him everywhere. Every time I walk into the Slytherin common room or sit down in the Great Hall to eat, it’s like he’s still there. … My friends and I try to joke sometimes about him haunting us, but I never felt like it was a joke. I’ve felt like part of him has been close the whole time. Angry with me. … Sometimes I talk to him in my head. We have whole conversations, even. I tell him about my day and I imagine what he says back. I can hear him speaking when I do it. …”

And it was all true. Pansy _had_ done these things, half-blind with rage and grief, lying catatonic on her bed in summer, making herself sick at Hogwarts so she didn’t have to go to classes. She’d spent most of the past seven months in dark tunnels inside her head, thinking about the last time she’d seen Draco—how the last thing she’d done was give him a cold look of disgust, because they’d been arguing, and he hadn’t even seemed to care.

The Auror didn’t stop Pansy. The hard glint in the woman’s eyes had faded, and her eyebrows were rising. The scribe was no longer looking at his quill, which was skating a rapid record onto the parchment, but up at Pansy.

“I didn’t want to come tonight,” Pansy went on. “I told everyone it was because the gala would probably be a lot of boring speeches, but it was because I didn’t want to be at the manor again. I knew it would be worse than ever. … I was right. It was awful. I kept crying in the bathroom and told the others I was fixing my dress. We were up in his room earlier and it still smelled like him. I kept remembering his body in his coffin. … Then, during the battle, I heard him. Draco. He spoke to me out of a middle-aged man’s body, one of the accomplices. He had a big black beard and curly hair and blue eyes. I cast the _Aguamenti_ because I wanted to keep speaking to him. … I tried to find him outside, but I sprained my ankle coming down the steps … I just want to see him again.”

Pansy’s body felt taut with discomfort, as if her skin was shrinking upon her frame. She hadn’t lied, technically, but there was a metallic taste in her mouth. The potion knew misdirection. It could feel her stretching at its constraints.

The Auror’s eyebrows were halfway up her forehead now. The anger had gone, replaced by something between annoyance and pity.

“You … heard your dead friend’s voice come out of a middle-aged man,” said the Auror. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Pansy, stop, stop’.”

“That’s all? Three words?”

“Yes.”

The Auror exchanged a look with the scribe, and Pansy experienced a fleeting sense of victory. The hardest part was complete, the planting of the seed. If they doubted that she was sane, reinforcing the notion would be easy. No one sounded madder than someone trying to prove their sanity.

But before the Auror could say any more, another figure materialised. “And this one?” said an imperious female voice.

The Veritaserum jarred again. Fear displaced Pansy’s emptiness for a split instant as Bellatrix Lestrange stopped in front of them.

The Auror lowered her voice. “The girl only did the one spell to help Granger’s lot, Madam Lestrange. Eyewitnesses and Veritaserum both confirm. She doesn’t seem right in the head. Seems to think the ghost of a dead friend of hers was … well, possessing one of the attackers.”

Bellatrix’s lip curled. “This is the Parkinson girl? Whose parents are still in Azkaban for blundering when they could have caught Harry Potter himself?”

The scribe gave a sycophantic chuckle. “Apparently not the brightest family around, Madam Lestrange.”

Bellatrix ignored him. Her eyes lingered on Pansy’s face, and she crouched, her singed robes fluttering in the night breeze. “Who is this dead friend, little Parkinson?” she crooned.

“Draco Malfoy,” Pansy said.

There was a moment’s silence, during which Bellatrix’s malicious sneer became rather fixed.

“You think my nephew’s spirit was here tonight?” she jeered, though the jeer sounded flat.

“Yes,” said Pansy, her stomach churning. It was true, in letter if not in essence … naturally, if Draco had been here, so had his spirit … but the Veritaserum rebelled. It wanted her to clarify, to be more forthright …

 _I’ve answered the question,_ she thought, battling the potion back. _I’ve done what you want …_

Bellatrix’s sneer had faded. There was a burst blood vessel in her left eye like a red star. She glanced up at the Auror. “She may have been placed under the Imperius Curse. Legilimency can succeed where the potion fails.”

The Auror cleared her throat, looking uncomfortable. “It is … irregular.”

Bellatrix’s fingers shifted upon her wand.

“But of course,” the Auror added hastily, “whatever you see fit, Madam Lestrange.”

Bellatrix turned back to Pansy at once and hissed, “ _Legilimens._ ”

_Pansy was in the foyer, throwing herself into the Christmas tree with a cry as a spell streaked past. She was stumbling back out of the boughs, pine needles catching at her hair, and as she turned, she saw her. Granger, distracted by duelling Blaise and Theo._

_It was an unbeatable opportunity. Pansy didn’t give a damn about helping the Death Eaters anymore, after Draco, after her parents … but she knew their currency. If she could get Granger, she would be the saviour of the night, and with the Lestranges’ favour, she might be able to get her parents out of Azkaban._

_She raised her wand. “_ Petrif— _”_

_“Pansy, stop!”_

_The command struck her like a curse._

_There seemed to be nothing in her veins, where just before her systems had been coursing with adrenalin. The sounds of battle seemed to dull and fade. Everything had stopped._

_Pansy revolved on the spot. A stranger stood before her, tan-skinned, with a bristly black beard and curly black hair, a snub nose, irises an electric blue. He was wearing a catering uniform, and looked at first unfamiliar._

_But—the shape of his eyes._

_“Stop,” he said._

_Pansy felt as if she’d slipped over the edge of something. “Dr … Drac—”_

_“_ Descendo! _” yelled Crabbe’s voice, and Pansy saw an ornament plummet off the teetering tree toward her, and she dived out of the way, behind a Ministry witch. When she looked back, he was gone._

Pansy jerked as Bellatrix pulled out of her mind. Pain stabbed at her temple; the woman hadn’t been gentle. But the effects of the Veritaserum were still upon her, so she could only kneel, waiting for what they might do next, dozens of vague, sick feelings clashing within her. How well had Draco’s aunt known his voice? Could she identify it from four syllables the way Pansy had?

Bellatrix did nothing for a long moment, her wand still outstretched, her face unreadable.

After a long moment, she lowered her wand. “The ravings of a lunatic child,” she said coldly to the Auror. “Yet her disloyalty enabled what we saw tonight.”

The Auror and scribe both hastened to agree, and to recommend light charges that would nonetheless convey the severity of such a lapse. Bellatrix gave occasional, disdainful nods.

But the Death Eater’s eyes remained fixed on Pansy, and there was no disdain or dismissiveness in that look. There was something far more dangerous: doubt.

#

Draco watched Hermione pull the faded bedspread up to Ollivander’s chin.

“I can’t think of anything else to do,” she whispered. Obviously she was afraid he would die in the night, and unfortunately, Draco thought, the fear seemed rational enough. Ollivander’s face was like a wax doll’s, his every breath like a death rattle. They’d situated him in the guest room that had been Draco’s. Hardly had the wandmaker’s head dropped back against the pillows when he’d fallen into a deep sleep.

Hermione was still fussing with the bedspread. Draco touched her wrist, stilling her motions. Even now, half an hour after their escape, there was a faint tremor in her hand.

Draco didn’t say anything, didn’t say _it’s all right_ or _let him rest_ , but Hermione nodded as if he had. She drew back from the bedside, and they slipped out into the hall. Murmurs crept down to them from the front room, where five Weasleys were keeping vigil: Fred, George, Ginny, Bill, and Fleur.

On Apparating to Shell Cottage after their escape, they’d found not only Bill and Fleur but also the three younger Weasleys, bags already packed. “We were all at the Burrow for Christmas,” Fred had said after they’d read the secret and returned to headquarters. “And good thing, too.”

“Did that clock of yours give it away?” Potter had asked. “You know—pointing to ‘Mortal Peril’?”

Fred sighed. “We’ve all been stuck on ‘Mortal Peril’ for a year and a half, mate. Thing’s all but useless now. No—there was a broadcast of the gala band on the Wizarding Wireless.”

“It went dead just before the speeches,” George went on, “and about ten minutes after that, they made an emergency announcement. Mentioned the Order and everything.”

“We figured that just might constitute a family emergency,” said Fred grimly. “So we set the ghoul back to normal, grabbed our bags, and scarpered.”

“What about your aunt?” Hermione asked.

Ginny tried for a light scoff, though she was still pale. “Muriel owled Mum and Dad last week to say she’s taking Christmas in a chateau in the South of France. She’ll have the sense not to come back to Britain after this.”

Draco had noticed that Ginny, like Pansy, seemed to have suffered a recent series of cuts.

Soon thereafter, Harry and Luna had gone to retrieve Luna’s father, leaving Draco and Hermione with the Weasleys and Ollivander. Now that they’d removed their disguises and situated the wandmaker, Draco knew they should return to the Weasleys, but the thought filled him with reluctance. They’d already spent fifteen minutes answering questions about the battle, about Ron’s disappearance, about Percy and the Weasley parents. Draco was exhausted, and their guests’ clear suspicion of him only exhausted him more.

He could still smell the manor burning. He could see it like a white-hot crown at the top of the hill.

A _crack_ came from the front room, and he and Hermione both leapt. They traded a look and hurried down the hallway. When they reached the front room, Potter had returned with Luna. Her father was nowhere to be seen.

“He wasn’t there,” Luna whispered. Even in the cell at Malfoy Manor she hadn’t sounded so frightened.

Potter looked hollow. “He’s been gone a couple of days. We found a letter from Bellatrix on the counter saying they had Luna, and to meet Travers and Selwyn in Diagon Alley for ‘instructions.’ They must’ve taken him then.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the den. It seemed none of the others could think of anything to say to reassure Luna, knowing what Bellatrix had done to her for little more than sport. Draco privately thought that the outlook for the dotty old man was grim.

There was one lifeline to cling to, though. “The Death Eaters still want something from your father,” he said.

Draco had hung back near the threshold to the hall, several paces away from everybody else. When he spoke, all eight of the others turned around to look at him, and he fought the instinct to flinch. Headquarters suddenly seemed so cramped.

“That’s what’ll keep him safe,” he said to Luna, leaning against the wall, trying to sound confident. “They want him to print their stories in that magazine. So, they can’t hurt him so badly that he can’t go back to work.”

“Is that your expert opinion, Malfoy?” said Ginny coolly.

Draco’s face flooded with heat. There it was. Confirmation that the other Weasleys, just like Ron, would only ever see a Death Eater when they looked at him. He opened his mouth, but before he could find words, Hermione said hotly,

“Draco’s part of the Order, Ginny. He nearly died helping us tonight.”

The Weasleys all looked at Hermione, startled. Ash was tangled in her hair, her lips a nearly invisible line.

Ginny glanced at Potter, who nodded. “Draco’s been on our side for a while now, so …” He looked from Ginny to the twins, at whom he raised his eyebrows. “Leave it, all right?”

Ginny and the twins exchanged dubious looks, then all shrugged in reluctant unison.

Potter turned back to Luna. “I reckon he’s right. As long as they need your dad, he’ll be okay.”

Luna considered. “It’s true that keeping a magazine at such high circulation is very difficult. Much more than most people would think.” And as she went on about _The Quibbler_ ’s humble beginnings, the tension eased.

Hermione met Draco’s eyes and gave him a faint but encouraging smile. The heat faded from his face, and he felt stabilised again.

Her words lingered in his mind. _Draco’s part of the Order_. It had been true for a while, he supposed. But he hadn’t yet thought of it in those terms.

The night had wrung him out so completely that for a while the fact just looped through Draco’s mind: _I’m a member of the Order of the Phoenix_. He’d helped establish a new headquarters, helped retrieve two Horcruxes. … He’d been here, part of the underground resistance, before any of these five Weasleys. For months, successfully, he’d been working to undermine Lord Voldemort.

Draco’s thoughts agitated, like choppy water before a storm, and for a moment he didn’t understand why. Then he realised he’d thought the Dark Lord’s name.

He rolled the name through his mind again, testing it. Something about the battle had numbed him to it. He’d fought against the forces of Voldemort, which had been bent on his destruction, and he’d survived.

As he mulled over all these facts, he felt something he hadn’t felt since the start of the dark year. It was a small, quiet pulse of pride. Draco looked around the front room at the new Order and could almost see lines drawn between them all. The Weasleys, suspicious and reluctant though they’d been, had housed Draco. He’d made the first move to rescue Luna. Luna had helped Ginny, Harry, and Hermione in the Department of Mysteries. Hermione had saved him. He’d saved her. They were all inextricably linked.

The only thing to do was wait for news about the others—the people who had planted themselves in front of Draco to protect him in the heat of battle, the way the Death Eaters never had.

#

**_SEVEN DEAD, DOZENS INJURED  
IN CHRISTMAS CATASTROPHE_ **

_Arson Attack Leaves Malfoy Manor in Ruins_

_A joyful Yuletide celebration disintegrated into a nightmare on Tuesday,_ writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent, _when anti-Ministry radicals staged a ruthless attack on the Ministry of Magic’s First Annual Christmas Gala for the Celebration of Magical Unity._

_“It was supposed to be an evening of holiday cheer,” said the Office of Domestic Affairs’ Algernon Wolflaw, speaking from his bed at St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, where he and 37 others are currently being treated for burns and injuries sustained during the attack. “I don’t understand what kind of person could do this to a party full of innocent people.”_

_Readers need not wonder the same. The_ Daily Prophet _can here reveal, based on hundreds of eyewitness accounts—including this reporter’s—that the attack was executed by Hermione Granger, the Mudblood who ranks at Number Two on the Ministry’s Undesirables list._

_“We believe,” said Minister for Magic Pius Thicknesse in an address to a terrified nation early Wednesday morning, “that Granger was acting under the orders of Harry Potter, the disturbed individual now most widely known as the murderer of Albus Dumbledore.”_

_While Granger is best known for her association with Potter, she has a history of ruthlessness in her own right, only sixteen when she cursed a fellow student at Hogwarts School with semi-permanent disfigurement. Her assault on Malfoy Manor was aided by a dozen members of the subversive organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix. (For full profiles of the attackers, see page 2.) Together, the assailants burned celebratory banners and used defenceless members of a crowd of nearly one thousand to shield themselves from the Greengrass Guard, who had been hired as event security._

_Aurors attempted to aid the Guard, but while extinguishing fires, evacuating guests, and reviving unconscious victims, they were unable to prevent the evening’s horrifying coup de grâce: the burning of Malfoy Manor, a 17 th-century dwelling of untold historical importance to Wizarding Britain. Survivors report that Granger cast the Fiendfyre curse ultimately responsible for the irreparable damage. Official estimates place the value of the destroyed home and its many hundreds of historic artifacts at upward of 6.5 million Galleons._

_However, the greatest cost lies in the deaths of seven courageous fighters who dared challenge the attack. Three Aurors and four members of the Greengrass Guard, ranging in age from 24 to 58, tragically lost their lives in the fire. Mediwizards expect the death toll to climb, as nine other victims remain in critical condition at St. Mungo’s. Most of the dead are survived by children and spouses. (For full obituaries, see page 4.)_

_While Granger and four accomplices escaped the scene, readers will breathe more easily to know that eight others were captured and interrogated under Veritaserum, to partial success. Some of the attackers had placed Memory Charms upon each other prior to their capture, presumably concealing dangerous plots yet to come. Aurors suspect this was the doing of attacker Sturgis Podmore, a veteran of decades with the Obliviation Squads. However, experts in Legilimency and memory cracking are scheduled to interrogate the assailants over the coming weeks._

_The attack has also exposed a shocking web of deceit within one of the oldest pure-blood families in the country. Molly, Percy, and Arthur Weasley number among the captured, the latter two of whom are former Ministry employees. When Aurors called on the Weasleys’ relations within an hour of the incident, they found that the family had fled, doubtless already aware of their relatives’ heinous plans._

_Now wanted for immediate questioning—and believed to be dangerous—are: Muriel Weasley, former Mudblood-rights activist; Bill and Fleur Weasley, known goblin-group affiliates; Ginevra and Ronald Weasley, the latter of whom was last seen highly contagious with spattergroit; and joke shop owners Fred and George Weasley (for an investigation into the unknown sources of Mr. and Mr. Weasley’s funding, see pg. 12). The Auror Office urges the public to Stun any of these individuals on sight and contact the authorities immediately._

_The Wizengamot voted unanimously in a night-time session, hours after the attack, to convict all but one of the accused on seven counts of accessory to murder, 38 counts of magical injury, one count of aggravated arson, and associated charges of premeditated assault. Each of these convicts earned multiple life sentences in Azkaban. The remaining defendant—Ms. Parkinson, 17—was convicted of the more minor charge of accessory to mayhem, and is to serve six months, due to a combination of factors: her young age, accounts that her only aid to the attackers was a water conjuration spell, and an apparently deranged mental state._

_“Young pure-bloods like Ms. Parkinson must band together in times like these,” commented the Minister at a press conference following his speech, “to keep from going astray. As we know, Mudbloods have been manipulating pure-bloods for centuries to position themselves as legitimate users of magic. If tonight shows us one thing, it’s that Potter and his ilk will manipulate, slaughter, and stop at nothing to destroy the society we hold dear.”_

_As the press conference turned to the subject of Harry Potter, the Minister went on to reveal information more shocking, perhaps, than any other._

_As has been covered extensively in these pages, Potter broke into the Department of Mysteries two years ago, where he destroyed crucial information about his past in the form of a Prophecy. This lost Prophecy was also sought by the wizard known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Famous for his prodigious magical ability, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was also responsible for scattered attacks decades ago—though none so destructive or senseless as Tuesday’s events._

_Ministry archivists, the_ Daily Prophet _can now report, have discovered that the lost Prophecy was not, as was assumed for years, about the supposed “downfall” of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Rather, it foretold the rise of a terrifying new power who would come of age to bring about the destruction of the Wizarding World. Experts now fear that Harry James Potter may be the subject of this doomsday forecast. As such, they suspect that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wished to show the Prophecy to the public to clear his name, proving why he tried to kill the madman once so affectionately nicknamed ‘The Boy Who Lived.’_

_“Certainly,” the Minister said in a concluding statement, “the days of the First Wizarding War were troubled, and You-Know-Who’s methods were rightfully seen as extreme. However, given researchers’ recent discoveries of the insidious nature of Mudbloods, we must consider the possibility that You-Know-Who acted out of protectiveness for the future of magic itself. Now, in the wake of Potter’s horrifying attack on hundreds of innocents, the contents of the Prophecy seem more and more foreboding. The Ministry, and Wizarding Britain at large, must re-evaluate what always seemed so certain about You-Know-Who’s role in these famous events.”_

_The Minister for Magic left the stage shortly thereafter, assuring reporters that we would remain apprised of the situation, but questions abound in the wake of this bombshell. Could it be that, for decades, the Wizarding World has shunned and feared its only chance at survival? Could it be that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is destined to defeat the Boy Who Lived, ensuring the end of attacks like tonight’s?_

_Only time will tell, but for now, the Wizarding World must mourn its losses and pray that none of the victims in St. Mungo’s succumb to their injuries. Well-wishers may find addresses to owl cards and sympathies on pg. 11._

_(For full transcripts of the Minister for Magic’s speech and press conference, see pgs. 6-7. For never-before-seen coverage of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s ground-breaking research in Experimental Transfiguration in the 1960s, see pgs. 8-9.)_

It was a mark of the severity of the situation that no one gathered in the front room made any sound of protest during Hermione’s reading of the article. Rather, the silence seemed to deepen as she read. By the end, her every word trembled with rage and disgust.

Finally Hermione threw the newspaper down, revealing the others’ stunned faces: Fred and George in their armchairs, Luna at the opposite end of the sofa, Ginny and Harry standing by the empty hearth, Bill and Fleur in a pair of uncomfortable chairs pilfered from the dining room, Draco leaning against the wall, still apart from the rest.

It was Christmas Eve, though dawn hadn’t yet risen. None of them had slept a wink, staying in the front room and tuning the Wireless all night, waiting for one of the others to appear by some miracle. Instead, they’d had to wait for the _Prophet_ , delivered ever-faithfully to the house across the village.

Hermione still couldn’t process everything she’d read. Seven people were dead because of Crabbe’s Fiendfyre, and the whole Wizarding World thought it was their doing. _Her_ doing. _Mass-murderer Hermione Granger,_ whispered a voice in the back of her mind. It was how she would be known, the way Sirius had been.

She reread the words _multiple life sentences in Azkaban_. She thought of Wood’s motionless form, and Mrs. Weasley, whose arm had been slashed open by a Cutting Hex, soaking red through her patched dress robes, and Angelina, who wasn’t even in the Order, turning to tell them to run, to go, to save themselves.

The black text blurred and twitched as her eyes filled with tears.

“Percy,” Fred said with a dead-sounding laugh. “ _Percy,_ sentenced to life in Azkaban. I can’t believe it.”

“Yeah,” George mumbled. “Picked a real moment to stop being the biggest prat in the known universe, didn’t he?”

“At least Mum and Dad got to see him pick the right side,” Ginny whispered. Her long red hair was tied back in a ponytail, one arm laid along the mantel, fingers tapping arrhythmically on the old wood.

There was a long pause. Then Luna said, somewhat absently, “The Memory Charms were a very good idea.”

Harry nodded. “That’s true. Looks like it’s kept the last of the Order safe so far. McGonagall or Hagrid getting identified would be big news.”

“Bad influence on the sprogs,” George added.

Weak smiles went around the room. They looked more like facial cramps than anything, but Hermione’s spirits still lifted. “I’ll do some reading on Memory Charms,” she said faintly. “I’m sure it will give us all some peace of mind to know more.”

“What is it you ‘ope to know?” asked Fleur. “In France we ’ave developed many varieties of Memory Charm. At Beauxbatons we learn about zem from young ages.”

Her gaze was forceful and lofty as always. Hermione had never much liked Fleur, had always thought she was full of herself, but after tonight, she was reconsidering. Fleur hadn’t drawn a moment’s attention to herself, nor even complained of tiredness. She’d spoken words of reassurance to the Weasleys, and had somehow maintained perfect posture in that uncomfortable chair all night, as if resolved to be some bastion of order in the room.

Also, around four a.m., Hermione had made a batch of tea that she’d known full well was terrible, and Fleur hadn’t even grimaced when she’d tasted it.

“Well,” Hermione said, “they said everyone would be interrogated _over the coming weeks._ Will it really be weeks before the Death Eaters get through the Memory Charms?”

“Zat will depend on ze charm,” Fleur said. “Zis Sturgis—if ’e is a professional, if ’e has done a good job … yes, it may take a long time to tease out ze entire truth. It will come in leetle pieces first. … If ’e removed Order meetings from Molly’s mind, let us say, ze first part to reappear can be ze colour of ze carpet in Grimmauld Place, or a stroke of paint in zat ’ideous painting of ze screaming woman. Vairy small details, meaningless.”

Fleur paused. “It will be like untying a knot. After zat, it will be faster and faster, more and more, until …” She snapped her fingers. “It will all unravel like zat, at ze end.”

Bill slipped his hand casually into Fleur’s. “It’s like most mind magic, Hermione. Do too much too fast, and you compromise the contents.”

A lump rose in Hermione’s throat, and she tried not to think of her parents. She wished they were here right now, her father gruff and awkward but always willing to distract with an interesting article, her mother ready to analyse her problems as if they were problematic molars. She hated the thought of Wendell and Monica Wilkins compromising the contents of Dominic and Celia Granger. She hated what she’d done.

Now Bill was taking his long hair down from its ponytail and running his fingers through it. “Sturgis knows what he’s doing. And if he’s made Tonks’s fake history look unsuspicious enough, they might pass her by to focus on our parents and Sturgis, who they know are deep in with the Order.”

“That’s supposed to be good, is it?” said George, firing up.

“Yeah, it is,” Bill said evenly, “because Mum and Dad don’t actually know that much. The Order’s hardly been operating since summer, and the less useful they are, the safer they are. … Sturgis did this to buy us time on the outside. Now we’re all here, and you can bet Remus and Kingsley will be on the move again, and McGonagall and Hagrid will be able to jump ship before the charms _do_ break.”

“So,” said Ginny, her voice hard, “you’re saying it’s all fine that eight people have been thrown in Azkaban?”

Bill looked at his sister, affection and sadness warring in his scarred face. “Gin, Mum and Dad knew what they were signing up for.”

“Angelina and Oliver didn’t sign up for this,” Harry said quietly. “Neither did Pansy Parkinson, for that matter. … I still can’t figure out why _she_ helped us.”

“Yeah,” said Fred, “and what was that about her being ‘deranged’?”

Hermione glanced at Draco. She had an inkling.

“I said something to her,” Draco muttered. “Only a couple of words, but … yeah, she knew it was me.”

Hermione’s heart sank at the confirmation. She’d expected it, but she couldn’t understand _why_ he’d done it. If Draco hadn’t revealed himself, Pansy would never have helped them—would never have been incriminated.

Hermione could tell that Draco was thinking the same thing. His shoulders were tense, and when he frowned this way, his features looked sharp enough to cut.

“What,” said George, looking baffled, “she _saw_ you, and the Aurors just chose not to believe that?”

“Even though they gave her Veritaserum?” said Fred.

Hermione cleared her throat. “Well, Veritaserum forces you to say what you believe is the truth, not necessarily the truth itself. Clearly they thought she was mad to believe she’d seen the dead walking around in another body, and thank goodness.”

They all lapsed back into silence. Hermione had tried to speak with authority, but her own nerves hadn’t settled. She hoped no one would look too deeply into Pansy’s supposed hallucination. Even more worryingly, would Sturgis have known to erase the Malfoys from Tonks’s and the Weasleys’ minds?

Either way, his secrecy couldn’t last much longer.

Luna broke the silence. “All that about You-Know-Who, in the article,” she said with a light frown, chin propped on her hand. “That was very odd.”

Harry sighed. “I suppose they had to start polishing up his reputation at some point. He won’t want to hide forever, and this is as good a reason as any for why we should suddenly trust Lord Voldemort.”

Hermione waited for the room to flinch at the name. Fred and George’s expressions twitched, but that was it. Even Draco was absolutely still.

Somehow their resolve in the face of the name bolstered Hermione. She sat up straighter. “It’s all such rubbish, anyway,” she said through gritted teeth. “Trying to act as if everything Voldemort did was for some noble cause, like he’s been some misunderstood hero the whole time … no one with any sense will believe it.”

“That’s not even the stupidest part,” Fred added with a snort. “It’s like the Chamber of Secrets all over again. Who’s going to buy Harry being the real Dark Lord?”

“Pathetic, really,” said George, shaking his head. “If he were going to be the single-handed downfall of the Wizarding World, he would’ve gotten way better marks on his O.W.L.s.”

A surprised laugh broke across the room, and for a split second, a weight lifted from Hermione’s shoulders. She felt a rush of guilt in the wake of the sound, and in the awkward hush, she knew the others felt it too. For Merlin’s sake, how could they _laugh?_ Even as they sat here, safe and whole, the others might be in chains in Azkaban, or under the Death Eaters’ wands.

“Zey are alive,” Fleur said.

She didn’t look guilty at all. Her eyes were still bright.

“Zey are _alive_ ,” she repeated more sharply. “Your parents, and Tonks, Sturgis, zese classmates of yours—we must fight for zem out ’ere. It will do nothing to mourn as if zey have been killed.”

“She’s right,” Harry said, his back straightening. “We’ve got—” His eyes darted to Hermione, and she knew he was thinking of the Horcrux locked upstairs in his bedside table. “We’ve got ten of us here, now,” he amended. “We’re in touch with McGonagall, Hagrid, and Aberforth. We’re going to start putting up a real fight.”

“Hear, hear,” said Fred, rising to his feet with a groan. “Maybe after some shut-eye, though. Anyone else absolutely knackered?”

“I ’ave not been zis tired in months.” The fire in Fleur’s lovely face had faded, and she yawned, standing too. “Will Bill and I set our tent in ze front garden?”

“Sure,” Harry said. “Fred, George, we’ve still got your tent. Luna, er, and Ginny—you can stay there too.”

Everyone else in the room began to move except Hermione and Draco. Bill and Fleur left through the front door with a rush of freezing air, and Harry led the other Weasleys and Luna down the hall toward the back garden, Hermione’s beaded bag in hand. Then they were alone.

Hermione glanced up at Draco, who was already watching her. During the night, they’d showered the fire off themselves, but the shell-shocked look still hadn’t fully faded from his expression.

“I suppose I’m sleeping top-to-toe with Ollivander, am I?” he said. His voice, usually butter-smooth, was raspy from all the smoke they’d breathed in, like the brush of long grass.

She laughed and rose to her feet, swaying with sleeplessness. Draco approached her, and she closed her eyes as he reached her. She leaned forward into him, resting her head against his chest. His hand settled over the back of her head, stroking her hair, and his heart thumped slowly, steadily. Was it only hours ago they’d fled down the manor drive, his hand feverish and sweaty in hers? He was clean and cool now, though the faint scent of smoke still hung over them both.

“Why did you do it?” Hermione murmured. “Speak to Pansy? You must have known she’d recognise your voice.”

“Right into it, Granger? Thought we were supposed to sleep.”

She smiled faintly and drew back. “We are. We can talk about it later.”

“It’s fine.” He seemed to be calculating something. Hermione felt a flutter of anxiety. They hadn’t really spoken about his past with Pansy, the same way they hadn’t really spoken about her past feelings for Ron.

Now that she thought about it, though, she could identify the tug of insecurity. Draco and Pansy had always seemed such a matched set, as if they’d been designed in a laboratory for each other. Pansy had certainly looked glamourous at the gala. … Had Draco been unable to resist? Had he seen Pansy and realised he still had unresolved feelings for her?

Then Draco muttered, “She was about to hex you. I told her to stop, that’s all.”

Hermione looked up at him, unable to believe her ears for a moment. He looked almost embarrassed, a pink tinge at the top of his cheeks. As the words sank in, a confused tingling flowed out from the centre of Hermione’s body.

They both knew what would happen if Draco’s secrecy broke. They knew who and what he would become in the public eye: a top target for the Death Eaters, a blood traitor, defector, and Undesirable. Yet he wasn’t even trusted by most of the people in headquarters. Already caught between two worlds, he would be loathed, soon, by both.

And after seven months of doing everything to avoid that fate, he’d cracked his secrecy open to protect her.

The thought overwhelmed Hermione. It scared her a little. … It was something he might have done for his family.

It reminded her of what she still had left to tell him.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Hermione said, and she led him upstairs.

#

Draco had followed Hermione without questioning. Once her bedroom door was shut, however, he hesitated, and he saw her pause, too. All through December, despite having spent many late-night hours together, they’d never actually slept in the same bed. Their eyes met for a furtive moment, and even in his exhaustion Draco felt himself tense. Then they both busied themselves, Draco taking his wand from his pocket to set it on the bedside table and Hermione pulling the bedcovers back.

They extinguished the lamps and settled onto her bed with a creak of the old springs. They were both already in pyjamas, soft cheap ones in cotton bought from a Muggle department store in a nearby town a few months ago. The moon was still glowing between the blinds, and they pulled the covers up over their shoulders, facing each other in the darkness, a foot or so apart. After a moment, their warmth built and mingled beneath the quilt, and Draco felt himself relax for the first time in what felt like a week. Hermione was all shadow, her hair splayed across the ivory pillowcase like loose cotton dyed dark.

“I have to tell you something,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t earlier. It won’t really be relevant for a few days, but …”

“What is it?”

“Your mother made contact with Mr. Weasley.”

Draco’s tension returned little by little, tautening his shoulders, making his voice strain. “When? … Where have they been?”

“They left Cathcove Cottage in mid-August. After that, they went to London, and …” Hermione hesitated, looking reluctant.

Draco felt a pang of unease. “What?”

She let out a small sigh. “They spelled a Muggle businessman into believing they were best friends of his who were tragically bankrupted. He’s rented them a townhouse in one of the most expensive parts of the city and … and waits on them. Does whatever they ask.”

Draco looked blankly back at her. An unfamiliar sensation was pulling downward at his insides, making the back of his neck feel hot.

He’d never in his life felt embarrassed of his parents. He didn’t even really know _how_ to feel it. The instant he realised it was embarrassment, a defensive voice hissed in his head, _They’re just trying to survive … it’s smart, really, what they did … and they had to do it, they didn’t have a choice …_

Except that Draco knew exactly why they’d chosen to do it this way, rather than finding an empty flat or house and Transfiguring furnishings for themselves. He could almost hear his parents’ amusement as they spoke to the Muggle, who would be under Imperius as well as Obliviation, describing what they wanted and watching him bend over backward, dull-eyed, to acquiesce. In their state of exile, it would comfort them to use a Muggle that way, to know that no matter how low they’d fallen, they still hovered miles above the Muggle masses.

 _Look at that, Lucius,_ he could practically hear his mother saying, cool and clear and light. _They_ are _good for something, after all._

Draco found he could no longer look at Hermione. She rushed on, sounding uncomfortable herself: “So—they spent six weeks or so looking through the Wizarding spots in London under Transfiguration. Not anywhere as central as Diagon Alley or King’s Cross, obviously, but all those dozens of little outposts—like Circe & Clíodhna and the Office of Magical Postal Receipts, that sort of thing, looking for traces of you.”

“They didn’t contact the Order for six weeks?”

“No. Apparently they didn’t want to risk it, with the only Order members left under such high surveillance. … But then Tonks and Lupin went on the run, and I suppose they thought it was their final chance to take advantage of the Order’s infrastructure, or what was left of it. So, in early October, your mum caught Mr. Weasley outside the entrance to the Ministry. She said to tell you that they’ll be at a place called Halfhold Hill every Sunday morning between 8 and 9 a.m.”

Draco must have let something show, because Hermione scrutinised him and said, “What?”

“Nothing,” Draco muttered. “Just … we used to have picnics there when I was six or seven.”

“Oh.” Her gaze softened. “Was it nice?”

He hesitated. “Yeah. It’s really remote, so I’d ride this junior broom and my dad would let out a kids’ Snitch for me. Those slow ones that are basically the size of Bludgers.”

Hermione didn’t quite manage the smile, and her expression was a bit too knowing. Of course she could intuit the collisions that were taking place inside him—the golden childhood memories grating like a striker against the flint of what he felt now.

His father, who had laughed and clapped when a six-year-old Draco caught that comically large Snitch, would have slaughtered the girl across from him in the Department of Mysteries.

His mother, who had lovingly packaged gifts to him every week for his first two years at Hogwarts, had called Hermione _scum_ last year in Madam Malkin’s.

Draco’s embarrassment deepened into bitter shame. For seventeen years, he’d wanted nothing more than to emulate his parents: to be as poised as his mother, as influential as his father. He’d always striven to make them proud, and for the most part he’d succeeded, but now he wondered _what_ they’d prided in him. All along, had they really been proud of what they’d shaped, like an artist to a sculpture—proud that they’d done such a good job of raising a pure-blood with pure-blood ideals?

Looking back, he could see how meticulously they’d planned his childhood so that he never interacted with Muggles. He’d never even had half-blood friends growing up. By age eight he was already talking about how only _real_ wizards should be allowed to have wands, how witchcraft really _belonged_ to certain families when you thought about it. Everything about him pruned perfectly into place.

Draco wondered if they would still be proud of him now that he was a blood traitor. He wondered if they would even love him. In that moment it certainly seemed they’d never trusted him, not really—not in the way Hermione or even Potter had. They’d trusted him to ask his own questions, to find his own way—and this was the way he’d found.

He thought of the manor burning away, exposing its dark skeleton, withering piece by piece into the night.

“You don’t want to bring them here,” Hermione said quietly.

Draco’s answer stuck in his throat. _Of course I do,_ he wanted to say. _They’re my parents._

He found he couldn’t speak the words. She was right. He was dreading their arrival.

He felt a stab of guilt. He hadn’t seen his parents for nearly half a year, and he was _dreading_ taking them to a safe haven? No matter what he felt, no matter his feelings of anger or resentment, he still knew they would have done anything for him. They would have died for him. What kind of a son was he?

But there was so much he wasn’t ready for them to know: the role he’d played in the manor’s burning, his participation in the Order, and most of all, his feelings for Hermione.

They held each other’s eyes, and he knew she was thinking the same thing.

“When they get here,” she said quietly, “well … obviously they won’t like the idea of us being …” She let out a slow breath. “It might be easier to stop.”

“Easier,” Draco repeated, not understanding. Since when did Hermione care what was _easy?_ She cared what was right, she cared what was just, she cared herself into knots and never stopped to worry about exertion.

Then he recognised the guarded look on her face. It was the same self-preservation that had led her to wall him off in November.

This wasn’t about ease at all. It was about the expectation of pain—and she was right to expect it. Obviously his parents’ reactions wouldn’t only extend to Draco when they found out.

“They’re not going to say anything to you,” he said, voice strained. “I won’t …”

A pause. “You won’t let them?” Hermione said, raising her eyebrows.

It sounded ridiculous when she said it. Draco’s cheeks grew warm. He didn’t know what he could do to stop them. Yell, cast a Tongue-Tying Hex, he didn’t know, but—

“Yeah,” he said. “I won’t let them.”

One corner of her mouth lifted. “How, exactly?”

“You got the Weasleys to keep quiet about me, didn’t you?”

She was smiling now. “Yes, well, that was nothing.”

“It didn’t feel like nothing.” He brushed his palm to her jaw, and she tilted her face in that way he liked, so that his palm fit perfectly to the contour of her cheek. Her eyes were dark and dilated, and he felt an odd, yawning feeling in his centre, like yearning or disbelief or some midpoint between the two. Hermione was here. She’d protected him, and he would do the same. At this moment it seemed like all he cared about anymore, that they both made it through, just like this, this close.

Draco kissed her. She tasted like toothpaste, and she pressed against him, her arm slipping over his waist, pulling him closer in the dark. Their legs tangled, and she fit so perfectly to him, and Draco’s heart was beating harder; he was realising that he didn’t know what he would have done if she’d wanted to end this. He couldn’t go back to the way things had been before. It had taken so much for him to get here, to feel the way he felt right now—not just the elation but all the pain and confusion of it. He took no pleasure in feeling ashamed of his parents, and the crush of guilt and self-loathing at the manor still lapped at the edges of his mind even now, and he held Hermione so tightly because there was so much he wanted to say, so much that he still couldn’t articulate, a build-up that felt halfway to asphyxiation.

But he’d struggled and fought to feel these things. He couldn’t retreat down this path—not now, when he was finally starting to feel that he knew the way.

#

Bellatrix set the _Daily Prophet_ upon an end table and gazed into the fire. She was alone in the Lestrange home. Rodolphus was in St. Mungo’s; he had congenitally weak lungs, and the smoke had weakened them further. Another inconvenience.

All in all, however, Bella remained pleased with the day’s events. The burning of the manor and the escape of the Mudblood girl had enraged her at first, and Bella privately suspected one of her accomplices had been Potter in disguise … but the Dark Lord didn’t need to know that particular suspicion. With some time to mull over what had happened, she realised it was all to the Dark Lord’s gain, in the end.

Presumably the Mudblood and her accomplices had broken into the manor to free the wandmaker and the Lovegood girl. Neither hostage was such a great loss. The Dark Lord had taken what he’d needed from the wandmaker, and the Lovegood man would do their bidding, after Selwyn and Travers’s persuasion.

Yes—that idiot boy who had burned the manor and killed those people had given them a gift. A few unimportant lives were a small price to pay for this: the first step toward the remaking of the Dark Lord’s image, a step they had been planning for months. Soon enough he would be able to step out into the sunlight, both feared and awed, like a god. Once Potter was dead and the nation in hand, the Wizarding World would finally see the glory of the new age. With the Dark Lord at its helm and she, his most loyal servant, ready to execute his every plan, Wizardkind could finally unite together in the next, greater mission: the conquest of Muggles.

Bella had been basking in satisfaction all day. The Skeeter woman had done well. She would be rewarded.

Only one thing still niggled at her thoughts … one small flaw.

The Parkinson girl’s memories had been suffused with emotion, possibly skewed by that emotion, but Bella could still hear the voice cutting through the whizz and strike of spells. It _had_ sounded like her nephew … something about the eyes, too …

She had respected the boy’s zeal the previous year. Narcissa’s son had been loyal. Driven by fear and cowardice rather than real devotion, that was true … she’d felt it in his mind when she had taught him Occlumency. Still, though, he had infiltrated Hogwarts in a way that no other Death Eater had managed. Bella could always appreciate ingenuity in the Dark Lord’s service.

The suspicion felt like madness. She had seen the body herself at the funeral. And yet … the boy had supposedly died in the company of Albus Dumbledore, one of only a handful of wizards who may have been capable of such an exact act of Transfiguration, and the spell would have held as long as the old fool lived.

Bella had not enumerated her doubts even to her husband. If, by some freak occurrence, her nephew _was_ alive, his deception would tarnish her by association.

Rage reared in her. Her blood was pure, her intent was pure, and yet she had already lost one sister as a blood traitor. How was she meant to stand the shame of another betrayal within her immediate family? She knew the Dark Lord would judge her for the faults of her bloodline. So would they all. … No, better to keep her suspicions to herself, to investigate them alone.

Bellatrix stood, and with a whirl of her cloak, she Disapparated. Now she was walking through a graveyard, crunching down a path of pebbles that shone in the starlight. No need to worry, she told herself. The Parkinson girl’s memory was affected by her feelings, that was all. She had convinced herself of something.

Yet Bella’s footsteps quickened as she approached the Malfoys’ grey marble crypt.

She entered. The small chamber was immaculately clean. The prowling dragons and chimaeras cut into the high ceiling shone as if they had just been cut from their blocks of marble. The floor shone underfoot as Bella moved to the farthest corner.

_DRACO LUCIUS MALFOY_

_Beloved son_

_Born 5 June 1980_

_Died 30 June 1997_

Bella flicked her wand, and a fissure cracked down the centre of the marble façade. The two halves swung forward like double doors. Another flick, and the coffin levitated out, long and dark, its lacquered surface gleaming.

She realised her palms were covered with a thin sheen of sweat.

Her eyes slid onto Lucius’s crypt, and then Narcissa’s. Yes—best to check all three, best to set her mind at ease entirely. She split one façade, then the next, and soon the three coffins were lined before her.

Bellatrix flicked her wand. The coffins’ lids rose.

Outside, a murder of crows took flight as a scream of fury split the night in two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh... the aesthetic.
> 
> y'all... i was so Very Very Whelmed by the response to the last chapter... like good lord. i love u. sorry for the late update, but i moved apartments between last chapter and this one! finally settled in now, thank goodness. :)
> 
> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	20. The New Order

The storm broke open when Bellatrix reached Azkaban.

The prison was filled with the sound of the ocean. The hush and suck formed to the arches of the grey-dark hallways, a hollow, inescapable echo. Sometimes, even hundreds of miles away from the place, Bella could still hear the ocean shattering itself against the rocks. Many of her fellow prisoners had tried to break themselves on the rocks the same way, trying for the freedom of death, but never Bella. When there had been nothing else, she had clutched to the knowledge that the Dark Lord would rise once more.

“The new prisoners?” she demanded of a Dementor that drifted close to a nearby cell. It turned toward her with a wash of cold, but she had lived so much of her life in that icy emptiness that she did not even shudder.

The Dementor led her to the uppermost floor—to Podmore. “Leave us,” Bella commanded, and the creature floated out, though not before inhaling a deep, rattling breath of her excitement. For she was excited now, her hand playing over her wand.

Podmore lay curled in the corner, the half-blood scum who had caused so much trouble with his Obliviation. He was still smeared with ash, his broad face defiant. Bella looked forward to seeing that defiance melt away.

He croaked, “I don’t know anyth—”

“ _Legilimens,”_ Bella hissed.

Podmore’s mind thundered over her, the immeasurable volume of memory and thought, the man’s pathetic worries about his Mudblood friends, the fear that his parents—the mother a Mudblood herself—had been killed. Soon enough Bella was stable in his memory, treading water, able to navigate.

She summoned memories of the Malfoys to herself. They passed through her in cold currents like ghosts, hundreds of snippets of conversations … _Seen Lucius Malfoy stalking around the place?_ Podmore was laughing, six years ago, to a fellow Obliviator— _I’ve just got the slime off my robes …_ and there Podmore was the previous year, insisting at his re-hiring appointment, _I was placed under the Imperius Curse, it was Lucius Malfoy, he’s a known Death Eater …_

But as Bella clawed her way through the memories, enjoying the way he jerked upon the stone floor, she saw conversations that the man had had as recently as three weeks ago, discussing the Malfoys’ deaths with his friends.

Triumph blazed through her. She lifted her wand and surfaced, breathing hard. If Podmore knew nothing of the Malfoys’ treachery, he would not have known to erase the family from the others’ minds.

Bella left him curled and quivering. She strode down the hallway, a smile playing around her lips now. She’d had the pleasure of using the Cruciatus on both Weasley parents now … but not yet their pompous fool of a son. Percy Weasley certainly knew nothing. It was obvious he had only turned traitor out of a panicked, childish loyalty to his parents. Yet he would have his uses, as all pawns did.

Soon the Weasley parents were gagged and bound in the corner of a dripping cell, and lying at Bella’s feet, waiting, was the young man. He made one tiny, stifled sound.

“Oh, are we frightened?” she said with a wide smile, stooping to his side. She’d immobilised him with a favourite curse of hers, not quite the Full Body-Bind. She liked to see the twitching, to hear the sounds that ground out from between their teeth. She liked proof.

She met the young Weasley’s blue eyes, which were blank with abject terror. He wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, cracked in one lens and twisted in the frame. She enjoyed the way he recoiled from her.

Muffled yells were coming from the parents, now, blunted by their gags. Bella looked up at them. She’d conjured posts to which she’d bound them, and no matter how they bucked against their ropes, they would not get loose. Even in this state—laid low as they should be—she was repulsed by them. _The waste,_ she wanted to howl sometimes, _the waste!_ The pride they could have had in a line of pure blood as ancient as her own, and they rolled around in the slop with Muggles.

“This need not be painful,” Bella said.

She did not speak loudly, but they stopped making their pathetic sounds at once.

“I know that you know what I seek,” she went on. “I know that you remember information about the Malfoys.”

Both Weasleys went rigid. It was practically a confession.

Bella rose to her feet. “I wish,” she whispered, “to speak to my traitorous sister and her treacherous worm of a husband.” She circled toward the posts. With a flick of her wand, she Vanished the gags from the Weasleys’ mouths, but they seemed too stunned to speak.

Anger was pulsing through Bella now. Back there, in the graveyard, it had taken every ounce of her restraint not to blast the Malfoys’ sepulchre to pieces. But if she could kill them herself and slip their bodies into their coffins, the Dark Lord need never know she was associated with three more blood traitors of the foulest kind.

 _Bella,_ she heard faintly, in her sister’s smooth voice. She felt a jolt of fury and uncontrol. So recently, and so deeply, she had trusted Cissy. It was like heartbreak to lose her this way, when Bella had been certain Narcissa had died a noble death.

She thought back to Cissy’s Unbreakable Vow, performed behind the Dark Lord’s back … she should have known.

Bella swallowed the sour taste in her mouth and forced a smile. “It has been far too long since I spoke to my nephew. Surely you wouldn’t deny me the opportunity?”

The Weasleys didn’t speak. They knew what she would do to the Malfoys when she found them.

Yet this was the game for Bella. She could have used Legilimency, of course … but what would the fun be without a hint of resistance? She let out a derisive laugh. “Surely you have not grown _fond_ of the Malfoys? Did my brother-in-law not try to slaughter two of your own brood?”

She widened her smile to something like a baring of the teeth. “And you must know that I value the life of this filth of yours—” She circled back and kicked Percy’s body hard, to short cries from the parents— “just as little. Why watch him die?”

Bella faced Molly and Arthur and let the smile fade. She let them see her seriousness. “So,” she whispered, “why begrudge me my tiny little family reunion? … In times like these, we must cling to family … mustn’t we? Or do you need a reminder?”

She whirled toward Percy, wand raised.

“No!” Molly’s scream ricocheted around the cell.

Bella froze, wand still raised. Arthur’s face twitched with guilty relief, his mouth sagging open. Molly had slackened against the post, relinquishing her weight to the ropes. As the couple’s eyes met, Arthur’s head dipped in a tiny, helpless nod.

“Halfhold H-Hill,” Molly gasped. The plump little woman found her footing and pushed herself up against the post. Her eyes burned into Bellatrix, full of loathing. “On Sunday, at eight a.m. You’ll find Lucius and Narcissa there.”

Bella lowered her wand, satisfied. The woman would be a fool to lie, when Bella could always return to make good on her threat. “And Draco?”

“We can’t say where he’s gone,” Arthur said through gritted teeth. “It’s protected by the Fidelius Charm. … He may meet them there on Sunday. It’s all we know.”

Bella considered. It was true that, even with Legilimency, she could not discover a secret protected under the Fidelius Charm, unless she was looking into the mind of the Secret-Keeper themselves. Of course, the Death Eaters knew all too well _where_ the Order of the Phoenix had placed their little hideout. The Potter Cottage had disappeared months ago, and the Taboo on the Dark Lord’s name was continually sounding alarms in that area … Potter himself, the sentimental fool, had all too obviously claimed it for his own.

Draco _was_ surely there, with the Mudblood and Potter, but Bella was confident she could snatch him at this meeting on Sunday.

Bella sneered at the Weasleys. “So obliging. The Dark Lord will thank you for your service.” She glided back toward the exit, using her wand to tuck a dark lock of hair behind her ear.

She idled at the door for a second, then, as if remembering something, returned back to Percy once more. “If you’ve lied, however … a little test of what is in store.”

Bella knew they hadn’t lied. But the rush of seeing their faces slacken with horror as they realised what was about to happen … it was sweeter and more potent than wine. “Percy,” gasped Molly. “Percy, no _—”_

“Please!” Arthur burst out, as his son’s wide eyes fixed on his.

Bella aimed her wand at the boy’s throat and said, _“Crucio!_ ”

Three screams mingled with her laughs.

The Dark Lord would have told her, _Restraint, Bella._

She could imagine the smile on his thin mouth, however, and she knew he would have approved.

* * *

Christmas and Boxing Day passed in a blur. There was so much to do that Hermione couldn’t keep track of it all—so much to do that she, Harry, and Draco hadn’t yet found a way to destroy the Horcrux. One night, they’d tried to take the sword to it upstairs in Harry’s room, but there was a protective enchantment on the locket’s exterior, as if the air around it were made of hard rubber, preventing it from being touched by anything except human skin.

“Try opening it,” Harry had said, but when Hermione attempted to pry the thing open—as in fifth year—it wouldn’t budge.

“Thrilling,” Draco had said. “I don’t suppose Dumbledore warned you about this, Potter?”

Harry sighed. “No.”

They’d all looked dully at each other, so exhausted that none of them said anything.

“I’ll research it tomorrow,” Hermione had yawned, and they’d locked the Horcrux back into Harry’s bedside table and traipsed off to bed.

She couldn’t help noticing that she’d slept better the past few nights, she and Draco held loosely in each other’s arms, than in the preceding six months combined.

Unfortunately, none of them had found time to do research on the Horcrux yet. Hermione felt as if they were battling a Hydra of logistical tasks. The instant that they solved one issue—figuring out how they were going to _feed_ this many residents of headquarters, exactly, or finishing off one of several potions to strengthen Ollivander—two more sprang into view.

Yet the feeling was also invigorating. It was most similar to how she’d felt at the Burrow before the Ministry had fallen, except that during those summer weeks, Hermione had felt as if she were holding her breath, trying to prepare for a million unknowns.

Now everything was concrete. Dumbledore’s murder, and the others’ sacrifices at Malfoy Manor … terrible though these things were, they were known quantities. With knowledge of what they were facing, and with the Order reforming in opposition to it, Hermione felt as if her feet had solidified under her.

The first official meeting of the new Order was to be Saturday evening. That afternoon, Hermione recruited five of the others to assist her with a Temporary Extension Charm on the front room. “It just isn’t big enough for everyone who’s supposed to come,” Hermione said, squinting down the length of her wand at the room’s left-hand corner.

Ginny grinned. “You mean it isn’t big enough for Hagrid.”

“Exactly. On three, then? One, two … _Dificia Protractum!”_

Half a dozen voices spoke the incantation together, and there was a groaning noise. The cottage walls stretched like putty, adding seven or eight feet to each of the front room’s dimensions. The ceiling arched high enough overhead that even Hagrid wouldn’t have to duck.

“That should do the trick,” said Hermione as they lowered their wands. “We’ll have to conjure some extra seats, too. … Fred, Luna, you handle that, please—there need to be enough for thirteen of us, and Luna, make sure to reinforce Hagrid’s. Bill, if you’d check that our Warming Charms cover the new square footage, that would be a great help. And Ginny, Harry wanted your help in the garden. One of the tents has sprung a leak.”

The others all turned to their tasks, and Hermione turned to find Draco leaning in the threshold to the hall, watching. For the past few days, she’d kept finding him like this, watching her direct and delegate with a catlike kind of satisfaction.

“What?” she said, approaching him with a small smile.

“Oh, nothing.” Draco shrugged. “You should consider management, that’s all.”

“Management?”

“I’m saying you’re pretty good at ordering people around, Granger. Organising things.” He prodded the chart that she’d hung by the hearth, which she’d charmed to delegate tasks like grocery shopping, cleaning, and meal preparation. The name _Fred Weasley_ danced out of reach of Draco’s fingertip.

Hermione laughed. “Oh, this is nowhere near what I did before O.W.L.s. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Draco said. “Why do you think the Ministry was always such a shambles, even before all this? Mismanagement. My parents used to talk about it all the time.”

There was the briefest of pauses. They hadn’t spoken about his parents’ arrival since Christmas, when they’d informed the rest of the Order that Lucius and Narcissa were due to arrive at headquarters on Sunday morning. The news had met with a predictably icy reception. Draco seemed to be looking for distractions from the topic as much as Hermione was; he went on as if he hadn’t mentioned them.

“No organisation,” he said disdainfully, “no confidence in half the Department Heads. Whereas …” Draco’s eyes travelled over the hustle and bustle of the front room, where Luna had now recruited both Fred and George to assist with reinforcing an armchair the size of a small sedan. “Everyone here actually _likes_ doing what you tell them to do.” He looked back at her. “They trust you, Granger. That’s not nothing.”

Hermione smiled. “I hadn’t realised I’d signed up for a Careers Advice appointment,” she said, trying not to show how flattered she really was. Draco would never give pointless compliments. He was serious about this, imagining her as a Department Head at the Ministry. For a moment Hermione imagined it, too, herself sitting in an office with a large, meticulously organised desk, leading a like-minded team…

She shook the thought. Even if the world were back to normal, and she _had_ been thinking about career prospects, fantasising about offices or leadership felt wrongheaded. She didn’t want her future to be about a list of titles she’d held. She wanted to change what needed changing, to fix what was broken.

“Anyway,” she said quickly, shuffling notes for the meeting, “I haven’t got much interest in management. I want to do some good in the world.”

Draco looked amused. “You realise that’d be infinitely easier from the top down?”

She crossed her arms. “Actually, the only way to drive real change is from the bottom up.”

He opened his mouth, but the impending debate was cut short by a _crack!_ Professor McGonagall had arrived for the meeting, punctual to the second, and Hagrid appeared moments afterward with a Portkey. There was a great shout of delight at their appearance, and Harry, just in from the garden and red-cheeked from the cold, tore across the room to hug Hagrid.

“Harry,” Hagrid roared, sweeping Harry up so high and so hard that Harry’s foot nearly caught one of the pictures on the mantel. “Yeh’re safe! Look a’ all this. … Lily an’ James’s place.” He sniffed loudly. “Jus’ like I remember it. An’ Hermione!” He set Harry down, and Hermione ran for him and wrapped her arms around his midriff. He responded with a bone-crushing hug, still sniffling loudly overhead.

Fang the boarhound, meanwhile, had beelined for Draco, who scrambled onto the sofa. It didn’t save him. The massive black dog bounded up onto him, slobbering all over his face.

Hagrid’s expression closed as he caught sight of Draco. “Tha’ git’s still with yeh?” he muttered to Hermione. “Hasn’t given yeh any trouble, has he?”

“No,” she said quickly, “no, not at all, he’s been a real help, he’s been …”

Hagrid looked confused, but was distracted by Luna asking Professor McGonagall, “Are you here to stay, Professor?”

From the sizable rucksack on McGonagall’s back, it seemed she was. The Transfiguration Professor gave one curt nod, apparently unable to voice the idea that she’d left Hogwarts.

“You had to leave, Professor,” Harry said with a steely look in his eye. “Mr. and Mrs. Weasley knew we’d contacted you before their memories were modified. The Death Eaters would have had you locked up in Azkaban the second they found out you had a way of reaching us.”

Professor McGonagall sighed, but nodded. “I’ve left a list of nominations for my replacement with _the Headmaster,_ ” she said, unable to hide her disgust. “I highly doubt that he will take any of them, but perhaps he’s so busy with his master’s agenda that he will wish to rehire as quickly and quietly as possible.”

“What about you, Hagrid?” said Fred. “Moving in, are you?”

“Yeah, what’s _that?_ ” said George, pointing to the massive sack on Hagrid’s back.

“My tent, o’ course,” said Hagrid, looking surprised. “Aberforth said we’d need ‘em.”

“Speaking of whom,” Hermione said, checking her watch, “he should—”

As if on cue, with a _crack,_ two more figures appeared by the hearth. One, tall and burly, had stringy, wire-grey hair. Behind his spectacles, his eyes were a piercing blue. Clutching Aberforth Dumbledore’s left hand was a small, familiar figure.

“Harry Potter!” yelped Dobby the house-elf, flinging himself forward to tackle Harry’s thigh in a hug. His bat-like ears flapped. “We elves has been hearing stories all year, Harry Potter, all year …”

Then they were all talking over each other an excited babble of Fleur speaking to Hagrid, Aberforth grunting to Bill, the younger Weasleys asking McGonagall questions. Hermione’s eyes strayed to Draco, who was still pinned under Fang on the sofa. At first she wanted to smile, but then she saw that Draco’s eyes had fixed on Dobby. He was very pale.

She hesitated, then asked Harry, “Did you ask Aberforth to bring Dobby?”

“Yeah.” Harry grinned. “I figured it’d be useful to have someone who can Apparate in and out of Hogwarts, wouldn’t it?”

George went still at Hermione’s shoulder. “Hang on,” he breathed. “Elves can Apparate in and out of Hogwarts! Does that mean they can Apparate in and out of Azkaban?”

“I wish it did,” Hermione said apologetically. “But the prison has had elves and other magical races as prisoners before. It’s cloaked to all kinds of magic for that reason.” She pursed her lips. “And I must say, it’s rather telling that the only time wizards _bother_ to consider elf magic is when elves are being incarcerated for crimes that wizards almost certainly coerced them into committing.”

Fred and George didn’t seem to hear her last sentence. George’s face fell, and Fred gave him a bracing pat on the back. “I suppose if house-elves could get in there,” Fred said, “any rich pure-blood with half a brain would be able to break out. Just call them and up they’d pop.”

“Everyone,” Harry was trying to say on Hermione’s other side.

“ _Sonorus,_ ” Hermione said, pointing her wand at him. He gave her a nod of thanks, then called again, in a voice that boomed throughout the expanded front room,

“ _Everyone!_ ”

Silence fell.

“Thanks,” Harry said. “Now that we’re all here, I reckon—well, should we start the meeting?”

“Hear, hear!” called the Weasley twins.

“There should be enough seats for everybody,” Hermione said hurriedly. “Hagrid, that armchair’s reinforced for you.”

She smoothed her itinerary atop her notes, and she and Harry took their places on the sofa beside Draco, who had finally been freed from Fang. As the dog trotted across the room to drool on Ginny’s shoes, quiet fell, except for the fire crackling merrily in the hearth. The winter sun had set hours before, and the firelight reflected off the glazed windowpanes, where snow was piled in soft white-blue curves.

“All right,” Harry said. “Firstly, thank you all. It’s …” He swallowed, looking around at the twelve other members of the new Order arrayed before him, but seemed unable to express what exactly it was to see them there.

“Right brave of us,” Fred supplied.

“Heroic,” George added. “Orders of Merlin all around.”

A few chuckles, but they settled quickly.

“In my fourth year,” Harry said, “right after Voldemort’s return, Dumbledore had a strategy for how to fight back.”

A rumbling huff came from Aberforth’s armchair, but he didn’t speak.

“And not all of it worked,” Harry admitted, “but now that we know what we’re up against, we’ve got to do the same thing. We’ve come up with a list of ideas for how to fight back.” He glanced at Hermione.

“Yes, I have it here,” Hermione said quickly, holding up the itinerary. “Obviously it’ll be difficult, and dangerous, so we’d like anybody who has an idea to speak up, too.” There was no response. She remembered, with a wistful pang, the first meeting of the D.A.

She cleared her throat. “First off, then. For months—years, really—the _Daily Prophet_ has been printing horrible lies about Harry. Draco and I saw first-hand the pamphlets about Muggle-borns they’re printing at the Ministry, and we’ve heard those awful reports on the Wireless, too. Until this month, people could turn to _The Quibbler_ for the real story—” Hermione nodded to Luna, who straightened with pride. “But with Luna’s father threatened, he won’t be able to do that anymore.”

“So,” Harry said, “we need to get the truth to people somehow. They need to know what really happened at Malfoy Manor, and that we’re not …”

“That Harry didn’t kill Dumbledore,” Hermione said fiercely. “And that Voldemort isn’t some freedom fighter for wizardkind.”

“A re-information campaign,” Bill said.

“Exactly,” Hermione said.

“How should we do it?” said Luna curiously, cross-legged in her chair.

“Well,” Harry said, “we were hoping you could be in charge of it, actually, Luna. It seems like you’ve picked up a lot from your dad.”

Luna’s eyes bulged slightly with excitement. “Ooh, yes, I’d love to help.”

George half-raised his hand. “Sorry, but have we got a spare printing press around this place I haven’t seen?”

“It wouldn’t be an entire magazine,” Hermione said. “We were thinking leaflets. Short, simple sheets that would be easy to disguise, replicate, and distribute, and to dispose of when someone’s done reading them.”

“I daresay you know, Ms. Granger,” said Professor McGonagall, “that replication on a grand scale—in orders of magnitude greater than seven—tends toward degradation?”

Hermione nodded, hastening to pull a book from the coffee table. “Of course. I’ve been reading lots about structural disintegration by Transfigurative derivatives to prepare …”

Ginny cleared her throat. “Let’s say, just in theory, some of us hadn’t been reading about structural disintegration by Transfigurative derivatives?”

“Yeah,” said Harry, seemingly unable to help a grin, “what exactly would that mean, then?”

Hermione replaced the book. “All it means is that if we duplicate an object enough times, or its duplicates, the results will be less and less accurate copies of the original. So it may be feasible for us to create a hundred leaflets and multiply them to seven hundred, but duplicating only one leaflet seven hundred times would produce hundreds of useless scraps of paper. There are potions and certain curses that can work around these effects, but they’re all very time- or resource-intensive, and … well, I don’t suppose anyone here has three entire Aggleback pelts lying around?”

“Just the two,” Fred sighed.

George shook his head in mock sorrow. “Always one Aggleback pelt short, aren’t we, Fred?”

Ginny snorted, but there was calculation in her eyes. “We’ll need loads of ink and parchment, then. … The D.A. was doing something like this in fall at Hogwarts, actually.” She traded a smile with Luna. “Luna and Neville and I were writing up any information from the outside we could get, sneaking out at night to post newsletters around the school.”

“Were you really, Miss Weasley?” said Professor McGonagall, her nostrils flaring.

Ginny grinned, apparently unfazed, and Luna nodded along, oblivious to Professor McGonagall’s ire. “We’re both quite good at simultaneous quill-charming now,” Luna said earnestly. “I think we could make a lot of leaflets very quickly, if we had enough materials.”

“But distribution’s another problem,” Bill said, tugging at his earring with a grimace. “ _The Quibbler_ was owl-order-only, and we haven’t even got one owl between us.”

“Wha’, no owl?” said Hagrid indignantly. “Just a mo’.” He rummaged in his heavy overcoat, turning out pocket after pocket, emerging with dog biscuits and a handful of Knuts. A moment later, a ruffled, live owl was sitting in the palm of his hand.

“Cheers,” said Fred, looking amused, “but Scruffy here isn’t exactly going to get us _Prophet_ levels of circulation, is he?”

“Mail subscriptions aren’t the only way to get the truth to your readers,” said Luna, sounding more and more excited. “When Daddy was just starting _The Quibbler,_ he would provide free copies for everyone. He’d leave stacks outside Flourish and Blotts.”

“None of you,” said Professor McGonagall sharply, “will be going anywhere near Diagon Alley. It’s far too much of a risk.”

Dobby puffed out his tiny, scrawny chest, across which a scarf was tied like a sash. “Dobby would be honoured to leave messages in Diagon Alley for the Order of the Phoenix! Dobby would risk life and limb to—”

“Er—no, Dobby, thanks,” Harry said quickly. “Professor McGonagall’s right. We need to keep everyone here safe.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “We’ve already had too many people caught.”

“How about flyovers?” Ginny suggested. “We drop the leaflets from brooms into Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. Maybe the entrance to the Ministry, too.”

There was a short, thoughtful pause.

“That’ll only work once,” Draco said.

As the room’s eyes turned onto him, Hermione thought she saw something in him glaze over, hardening like a veneer.

“An’ why’s that, Malfoy?” said Hagrid with barely veiled distrust.

Draco looked over at Hagrid without a flicker in expression. His gaze was several degrees cooler than usual, and Hermione prayed he wouldn’t lash out. She knew the discomfort he must be feeling, but if he behaved the way they expected, they’d never see him any differently.

Draco’s voice was clipped, but, to Hermione’s relief, even. “Once they know we’re doing this flyover idea,” he said, “they’ll station aerial guards in those places. So, it’ll only work once.”

“Yes, that’s probably true,” Hermione said, trying to sound casual. Draco just needed to get used to this, that was all. Soon enough, she told herself, it would be the way it had been before, when it had been only the three of them. … The others just needed to see that more relaxed side of him, that was all.

So far, though, he seemed reluctant, or maybe unable, to relax.

“Just one flyover could be useful, though,” Harry said thoughtfully, still looking at Ginny. “A load of leaflets as a big first push, so that people know to watch out for them in the future.”

Fred and George were muttering something to each other. Hermione cleared her throat. “Fred, George? Something to add?”

They gave a simultaneous grin. “Yeah,” Fred said. “We’ve got an idea.”

“We were developing something with Lee in seventh year,” George went on. “A joke broadcast on the Wizarding Wireless.”

“Never got off the ground,” Fred added, “for reasons involving one Dolores Jane Umbridge …”

“… but the basic tenets of the idea stand,” George said. “We think we can set up a secret frequency on the Wireless that you need a password to listen to.”

“And ours can broadcast the real news,” said Fred, “not whatever rubbish the Ministry are putting out.”

“That’s brilliant,” Harry exclaimed, moving to the edge of the sofa cushion. “We can update the whole country on what we know. The house has an attic you can work out of.”

“Great,” the twins chorused.

Hermione was scribbling down notes. “Then Fred and George,” she said, “you two will set up this broadcast, and Ginny, you’ll work with Luna on the leaflets. We can discuss the precise logistics as we go.”

Four heads bobbed.

“What’s next?” Harry said in a lowered voice.

“Numbers,” Hermione said, tapping the itinerary.

Harry nodded and scanned the room again. “Look,” he said, “there may only be a dozen of us here, but we know there are lots of other people who stand behind the Order. For Merlin’s sake, everyone who’s Muggle-born is on the run, in hiding, or being targeted by the Ministry. That’s got to be thousands of people across the country. … Not all those people can come to headquarters, obviously, but what if we set up other safehouses, where people on our side know they can go if they’re in trouble?”

“We’re hoping,” Hermione added, “that the people who are sympathetic to us can spread the word. And I’ve been researching methods of unmonitored Floo connection. It’s been illegal for decades, of course, but an interconnected network of safehouses could help us scale our numbers up to make a real stand against the Death Eaters and the Ministry.”

“Tha’s an idea,” Hagrid said, “but I can’t see how we’d go abou’ findin’ people.”

Professor McGonagall nodded. “I’m afraid Hagrid’s right. Establishing new safehouses would certainly be achievable—I myself have assisted Professor Flitwick in the recasting of Hogwarts’ own protective enchantments for years.” There was a note of pride in her voice. “But those who have gone to ground will have hidden themselves by any means necessary. I trust you all know about the Snatchers?”

“The what?” said Harry.

“Snatchers,” Bill said grimly. “Bounty hunters that work for the Death Eaters. They get rewarded for turning in Muggle-borns on the run, truants from Hogwarts, anyone who’s faked their family tree, that sort of thing. They’ve been roving throughout the country for a fair few months.”

For a moment there was silence. Hermione glanced at Harry, then Draco, and knew they were thinking the same thing. … _Truants from Hogwarts_. Ron.

“And—and what do they do with truants?” Hermione said, struggling to keep her voice even.

“Bring them back to Hogwarts,” Bill said. “And then …” He looked to Ginny.

Ginny shrugged. “They hand them to Snape. The Carrows rough them up a bit, but it’s nothing too awful.”

But Hermione’s mind was churning. The first time they’d checked the Marauder’s Map for Ron had been nearly twenty-four hours after he’d left. If he had been brought to Snape within that time, it would have given Snape plenty of time to relocate him away from the school grounds.

 _No_ , Hermione thought frantically. Surely that couldn’t be right. Snape would have interrogated Ron, and without any training in Occlumency, Ron would have been unable to hide either headquarters’ location or the quest for the Horcruxes from Snape. If Snape had discovered either of those things, surely Voldemort would have returned to Britain immediately?

Draco was the one to break the silence. “Not everyone’s in hiding,” he said.

“Yes,” Hermione said, shaking herself back to the present moment. “Er, Mr. Dumbledore—Aberforth—since you’re the only one still in the open, that makes you the only person who can contact Order sympathisers aboveground to raise support.”

“Support?” Aberforth snorted. “It’s gettin’ more and more dangerous out there. People won’t want to declare their loyalty to you, or to my brother’s saintly memory, if it means their family will get dragged out of their beds.”

Hermione’s cheeks grew hot. Suddenly she felt as if what she’d said was hopelessly naïve, even presumptuous.

But then Fleur spoke up, shaking back her silvery hair. “Zey need not stand on zeir doorsteps and shout zeir support to ze skies,” she scoffed, far exceeding Aberforth’s disdain. “Zey could send supplies, or gold. Uzzerwise, ‘ow will we plan to pay for brooms, quills, ink, and parchment? Zis broadcasting equipment zat we will need? In fact …” She cast a look around the room. “‘Ow do we plan to pay for our meals? Ze meals for people in uzzer safehouses, when zey are established? We will need gold.” She glanced at Hagrid and the bedraggled bird on his wrist. “And when zat owl is well again, I shall send him to my parents to ask for exactly zat.”

It bolstered Hermione more than she could have expressed, hearing the haughty, hard-to-please Fleur not just supporting their ideas—but speaking as if she assumed they would come to fruition. “Thank you, Fleur,” Hermione said, feeling emboldened. “You’re right. We’ll definitely need funds.”

“But it’s more than that,” Harry said, his eyes boring into Aberforth. “People need to know that _we’re_ willing to stand up and fight Voldemort. That way, if they want to do the same thing, they’ll know they’re not alone when the time comes.”

Aberforth didn’t look energised. He looked tired and begrudging. “Well,” he muttered, “can’t say I’d mind havin’ a few more fully qualified witches and wizards to lean on.”

There was an unpleasant silence.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Ginny, narrowing her eyes.

Aberforth scoffed, looking from Ginny to Fred and George, then scanning Harry, Hermione, and Draco on the couch. “That none of you should be doin’ this, that’s what.”

“None of us should be— _what?_ ” Hermione said in disbelief. “What would _my_ other option be? I’m a Muggle-born! It’s illegal for me to go back to school, in case you’ve forgotten, or to carry a wand!”

“And it’s your job to fix those problems, is it, missy? There’s no one else who could do it besides a bunch of kids?” He made a disgusted sound. “My brother, loading you all up with these ideas of carrying the world on your shoulders—”

“Now hang on jus’ a second,” Hagrid growled. “Professor Dumbledore died keepin’ Harry safe!”

Aberforth let out a bark of a laugh. “Does he look safe to you now? Looks to me like Potter’s been on his own for months, barely dodgin’ Death Eaters and the Ministry—”

“Aberforth,” Professor McGonagall said stiffly, “that’s precisely why we’re all here: to make sure he isn’t alone. Albus had—”

“My brother,” Aberforth snapped, “was much too happy to let Potter stand on the front lines and—”

“Excuse me,” Draco said loudly, “did we all come here to discuss a dead man’s questionable judgement?”

Silence dropped. All eyes turned to Draco, who raised his eyebrows, looking coolly irritated. “I know I’m new to the club,” he said, “so maybe you all do this every time, but _I_ thought we were here to make a plan.”

In the silence, Fred let out a single snicker. Some of the tension eased.

“Draco’s right,” Harry said. “We didn’t ask to be targets, but if we’re here, we’re choosing to fight. I’m not asking any of you to stay, though. Go, if you want.” He gave Aberforth an irritated look. “Otherwise, let’s get back to Hermione’s list. We need allies. We need to find the people who are hiding and scared, or secretly on our side.”

Bill nodded, considering. “I can think of one place we’ll find support. I don’t know a single goblin who’s happy with the way things are going, here or abroad.”

“It is ze same with my friends from Beauxbatons,” Fleur said. “And Viktor says ze same of Durmstrang. We all expect zat once Voldemort ’as concluded with Wizarding Britain, ’e will look across ze water.”

“We could write to Charlie, too,” Bill said. “He went back to Romania after the wedding, and I know he’s got friends in Hungary and Croatia and Serbia.”

“Are these friends … dragons, by chance?” said Fred mildly.

“Merlin,” said George with a sigh, “I’d kill to see Death Eaters duelling a pack of Hungarian Horntails.”

Hermione had been taking notes so quickly that ink had splattered her shirt. “These are all good thoughts,” she said. “Bill, Fleur, a letter-writing campaign abroad could put us ahead of any Death Eater efforts to propagandise in other countries. … Hagrid, do you think you could contact Madame Maxime? Is there a chance that any of the giants might help?”

Hagrid smoothed the owl, who was now waddling up the sleeve of his overcoat. “Grawpie could be some help wi’ the giants, yeah. They’ve been quiet fer a while after smashin’ up the coast, an’ I reckon that means the infightin’s settled down. … Tell yer what, though,” he added, looking thoughtful. “The centaurs got run out o’ the Forbidden Forest a month ago. The Carrows said summat abou’ _half-breeds_ an’ a week later the whole herd had ter go.” He shook his head in disgust. “I reckon I know where they might’ve gone … I could try an’ find ‘em, see if they’ve got their heads out of the stars now. Can’t promise anything, mind, but we can talk.”

“Wonderful.” Hermione glanced to Dobby, who was swinging his mismatched socks off the edge of his too-high seat. “Dobby, do you think any of the Hogwarts house-elves might feel the same way you do about the Order of the Phoenix? Willing to help us, I mean?”

She hadn’t spoken with any particular hope, but Dobby’s legs stopped swinging, and a hesitant look spread across his face.

“Oh, yes, miss,” he said.

“Really?” Hermione said, startled.

Dobby nodded. “The house-elves is in a terrible state. In November, Winky is overhearing the Carrows planning, and she tells us come spring, we is expected to … to …” He gulped. “We is expected to serve as curse subjects for students’ Dark Arts exams.”

The bottom of Hermione’s stomach seemed to drop out. Horrified silence spread throughout the room.

“No,” Harry croaked. “Dobby, can’t the elves ask the students to free them? If everyone knew this was happening …”

Dobby looked confused. “No, Harry Potter, no,” he said. “When we is before the wizards we serve, enslaved elves is not allowed to admit we want freedom. We is meant only to serve, never to cause wizards discomfort. Most elves will not even speak among themselves of freedom, they is so unused to it.”

Hermione felt a pain in her palms and realised she was clenching her fists so tightly that her fingernails were cutting skin. She remembered the Hogwarts elves shunting her, Harry, and Ron out of the kitchens in the fourth year when she’d started speaking about freedom. Her cheeks flushed as she remembered everything she’d said, encouraging the elves to want clothes, and pay, and lives of their own. … With what Dobby had just said, the little sermon felt so purposeless in retrospect, even condescending. Of course house-elves weren’t allowed to admit that they wanted freedom, that they wanted _anything_ , that they even _had_ feelings of their own. Of course the same hideous magic that enslaved them would place the comfort of wizards’ ignorance above all else.

She glanced around the room. Fred, George, and Ginny, who had always joined in with making light of S.P.E.W., looked deeply uncomfortable, and Draco’s eyes were closed, his fingers clutching to the sofa arm.

“But,” Dobby went on with a bit more steel, “we elves is speaking often now of freedom at Hogwarts, in secret.” He brightened. “Winky is helping Dobby to encourage the other elves. She is seeing her dead masters’ lies and secrets now … once she is no longer grieving the loss, she is seeing how she is used by them.”

“And so she should!” Hermione burst out. “The whole Crouch family was despicable to her! Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Dobby,” Harry said, his voice still hoarse, “you and Winky, you’re free. So, you _can_ tell the students the other elves want freedom. Can you get in contact with Neville Longbottom? Tell him what you just told us, and ask him to tell anyone who’s still loyal to the D.A. that any student can free a house-elf by giving them clothes.”

“Ah, Harry Potter,” Dobby said anxiously, wringing his hands, “but if only some of the house-elves is freed, the others is still at risk … the others is certainly being punished for what happens.”

Ginny spoke up. “Neville can put together a mass effort, then,” she said. “All at once, in Gryffindor Tower or in the kitchens, so they’re all freed at the same time.”

Still Dobby demurred. “Many of the house-elves is still wanting to live in Hogwarts. It is safer in the castle than outside, they is saying.”

“Hang on,” said Fred, “but you and Winky live in Hogwarts.”

“Yeah,” said George. “They can all pretend like nothing’s changed, can’t they?”

Harry nodded. “They just need to be able to run for it, if necessary.”

Dobby hesitated, then straightened in his seat. “Dobby will ask the Longbottom boy,” he said with resolve. “And Dobby will ask the other house-elves what they is willing to do for the Order.”

“Thanks, Dobby,” Harry said.

Silence settled over the room. “All right, then,” Hermione said, her voice still shaky. She looked down at her notes. “Let’s … let’s sum up, then. Fred, George, Ginny, and Luna, you’re in charge of reinformation. Professor McGonagall, you’ll plan and enchant a new series of safehouses. Everyone else has letters to write or contacts to make, for which, firstly, we’ll need a number of owls. … Aberforth, we can draw up a list of what we’ll need and Harry can deliver it to you through the mirror. Any supporters can send parcels or supplies to a separate address that we can decide on later.”

“What about you three?” said George, pointing at the sofa. “What’ll you be up to?”

Hermione exchanged a shifty look with Draco and Harry. “We’re …” Harry cleared his throat. “Er, we’re working on something else.”

“What is it?” said Fred, looking nonplussed.

They all hesitated. Hermione didn’t want to say it was a job Dumbledore had left them, at risk of reigniting the earlier argument over Dumbledore’s motives. … Worse, if they implied it was the key stroke to Voldemort’s defeat, the others would only clamour for details. Hermione tried to think of a lie, but she could see the others’ curiosity growing.

“Occlumency,” Draco said, finally. “Potter started trying to learn it in fifth year. I learned last year, so, I’ve been showing him how.”

“Yes,” Hermione said with a rush of relief. “Harry needs to be able to protect his mind from Voldemort. It’s very important, but it’s also very private, so unfortunately we’ll need quite a bit of time to work on it alone.”

She gave Harry an apologetic look. She knew he wouldn’t like being seen as a potential liability, but he just nodded. The rest of the Order didn’t press, curiosity apparently sated.

Harry adjourned the meeting, and Aberforth and Dobby Disapparated soon after. Soon enough, the others were situated: Fred and George in the dusty old attic, Ginny and Luna drafting their first leaflet in the front room, while Bill and Fleur helped Hagrid and McGonagall set up their tents in the front garden. Between McGonagall’s tent of tartan, Fleur’s of delicate grey silk, and Hagrid’s of red-and-white spotted fabric, the garden at the Potter Cottage was beginning to resemble a bizarre patchwork quilt.

Finally, though, Hermione slipped with Harry and Draco into the library. “ _Muffliato,_ ” Harry said, pointing his wand at the closed door.

They all piled their usual cushions on the floor. The instant they settled down, Harry said, “The Snatchers.”

“Yeah,” Draco said. “Weasley.”

There was a short, grim silence. Hermione swallowed. “But what’s the probability that Ron just _walked into_ a band of Snatchers?”

“They might’ve been near Ottery St. Catchpole,” Harry said.

Draco nodded. “If they’re any good at their jobs at all, they’ll have outposts in any town with a sizable wizard community.”

“Hermione,” said Harry, “think about it. What other reason could Ron have for not coming back? I know you thought he was hunting Hufflepuff’s Cup, but we’ve got no evidence for that. Yeah, Ron was angry, but he wouldn’t stay away for six weeks. He knows how important the Horcruxes are. He must have been caught.”

“But,” Draco said, “they clearly didn’t know _who_ they caught. The article in the _Prophet_ said Weasley was last seen with spattergroit, so, the Death Eaters and the Ministry still don’t know that was a hoax.”

Harry nodded. “He’ll have given the Snatchers a fake identity.”

“But if Ron pretended he was a qualified wizard on the run,” Hermione said, “they would have given him to the Ministry. So they must have realised he was Hogwarts age, and that he was playing truant. They must have sent him to Hogwarts. To … to Snape.”

Another silence.

When Harry spoke, he sounded sick with guilt and worry. “Snape knows you and Ron are my best friends. Maybe he thinks he can … can lure me out with Ron, or …”

“He wouldn’t need to lure you anywhere,” Draco said. “Weasley’s Secret-Keeper, and Snape’s a Legilimens. Snape could have come here himself.”

Harry frowned. “Then maybe it has something to do with the Horcruxes. Not even the Death Eaters know about them. What if Snape saw in Ron’s mind that we were hunting the Horcruxes, and …” He straightened up. “Do you think Snape knows something about the cup?”

“I don’t see why it would make a difference,” Hermione said. “He would summon Voldemort right away. This is the most important thing he could possibly tell him.”

Harry didn’t answer, apparently at a loss. Hermione felt the same; it didn’t seem to make sense.

“Weasley knew more than that,” Draco said slowly. “He knew about the Elder Wand, too. Not by name, but he knew the Dark Lord was searching for a powerful wand that Grindelwald had. We talked about it that night he left—it would have been at the top of his mind.”

“But why would that change anything, either?” Hermione said, studying Draco’s wary expression. “Snape’s loyal to Voldemort. Surely he’d want Voldemort to have the wand?”

“Yeah,” Draco said slowly, “he’s loyal, but he’s done some things the Dark Lord didn’t know about, too. He made an Unbreakable Vow to my mother last year, that if I didn’t kill Dumbledore, he’d be the one to do it. And I told the Order about it,” he added quickly. “I told McGonagall, Hagrid, and Dumbledore that Snape wasn’t working for them. That month I was at Grimmauld Place, I tried to bring it up with McGonagall a hundred times, and she wouldn’t even listen, she thought he’d faked the Vow somehow …” Draco shook his head, looking annoyed. “Anyway—Snape still hasn’t told the Dark Lord about me or my parents, either, so that’s a second thing.”

“What are you saying?” Harry said.

“I’m saying, Potter, that Snape’s not just the Dark Lord’s pawn. He makes his own decisions. All the Death Eaters do, none of them are completely loyal. Look at my parents. Look at …”

He tugged at the left sleeve of his jumper and looked away, his mouth thin.

Before Hermione could stop herself, she brushed her hand against his knee in reassurance. Harry’s eyes followed the motion, but he didn’t remark. The tension in Draco’s shoulders relaxed by a degree.

Hermione turned her thoughts back to Snape. “Well,” she said hesitantly, “we know Snape has ideas of grandeur. He did call himself the _Half-Blood Prince_ , after all.”

Harry’s expression darkened. “And last year, when we fought, he was so proud to let me know who he really was.” His disgust turned slowly to worry. “Are we saying that he’s gone after the Elder Wand? That he … I dunno, thinks he can beat Voldemort to it?”

“It’s possible,” Hermione said, chewing hard on her lip now. “Obviously this is all conjecture … but Voldemort _is_ abroad. As long as he’s away, he’s not monitoring Snape. And if Snape wants the Elder Wand, that could explain why he hasn’t given headquarters away. If he did, then Voldemort would come back to Britain, and Snape would be put on a short leash again.”

“But then … then Ron …” Harry met Hermione’s eyes, and she knew they were asking themselves the same unspeakable question. If Snape had drawn such sensitive information from Ron, how could he have left Ron alive?

Draco broke the horrible silence. “He’s too valuable a hostage to kill.”

He spoke in the same guarded voice he’d used when speaking about Luna’s father—as if he knew normal people didn’t speak about hostages, about torture, about people used like pawns, in this certain way. But Hermione looked at him with the feeling of hunting for a lifeline, and Harry was doing the same.

Draco went on. “Snape knows you’re the new leader of the Order, Potter. Weasley’s your best friend, and related to half the Order’s inner circle. If he’s trying for power and leverage, he’d be an idiot to kill him. Snape’s no idiot.”

“You’re right,” Hermione said after a moment, nodding. “He’s right, Harry. There would be no real reason even to hurt him, really, let alone to—to … he must be alive.”

Harry swallowed, but nodded too.

“As for the wand,” Draco said slowly, “I think Snape would only go after it if he thought he had a real idea of where it was. He wouldn’t just throw caution to the winds.”

“But that’s bad news, too,” Harry said. “Ron’s been gone for ages. If Snape’s known about the Elder Wand this long, he might already—he might al—”

His voice failed, and he made a convulsive motion. His eyes widened behind his glasses, his mouth hanging slack.

“Harry?” Hermione said, alarmed. “What is it?”

He looked from Hermione to Draco with numb horror. “The … the wand,” he managed to choke out. “We thought Grindelwald lost it sometime before duelling Dumbledore, to some other person. But what if the person he lost it to _was_ …”

The pieces slammed together in Hermione’s head. She, too, felt as if she’d been struck.

“Dumbledore had the Elder Wand,” Draco rasped, his grey eyes blank with shock. “He left you the symbol in his will … the old man had it this whole time.”

“And Snape …” Hermione whispered. “Snape killed him. Which means Snape _already won the wand_.”

They sat in silence for what felt like an eternity. The idea that Snape might control the so-called unbeatable wand … only now had Hermione begun to feel as if they might surmount the obstacles before them, and now this new threat loomed like a thunderhead.

But then Hermione remembered something: a movement in the dark … a piece of wood slipping from papery fingers. A tiny, hopeful match seemed to flare in her chest.

“He might not have it,” Hermione breathed.

Harry and Draco looked hopelessly back at her. “How?” Draco said. “Dumbledore is buried on Hogwarts grounds. Snape could stroll out any time and—”

“I didn’t bring Dumbledore’s wand back with his body,” Hermione said. “It fell out of his hand in mid-air when he fell off the Thestral. We were thousands of feet up. It probably shattered on impact. There may not even be an Elder Wand anymore!”

Although neither Harry nor Draco looked entirely reassured, their faces had, at least, reanimated.

Colour was returning to Draco’s cheeks. “It could be broken,” he said slowly. “If it really _is_ such a valuable wand, though, it’ll have been treated over the years with Resilience Potions. They do that with family wands, historic wands, that sort of thing.”

Hermione considered this. “Well, even if the wand _did_ survive the fall, how is Snape supposed to find it? It was the middle of the night, so he couldn’t have seen any landmarks. And,” she added triumphantly, “Mad-Eye only assigned us directions to fly in when we got to the Dursleys’. So _we_ know that Dumbledore and I were headed west-northwest on that Thestral, but Snape doesn’t even know that much. All he knows is that we were somewhere within fifty miles of Number Four, Privet Drive.”

“Still,” Harry said, “he’s had six weeks to look for it already. A wand that can win any fight … Snape would keep going until he found it, no matter how long it took.”

“Then we have to find it before he does,” Draco said. “God knows how.”

Hermione went very still. “We already know how,” she breathed.

“What?” said Draco.

“We do?” said Harry.

Their expressions filled with disbelief as a smile spread slowly across Hermione’s face. She tugged her beaded bag out of her pocket and stuck her arm down into it, fishing around through the detritus of months on the run.

“Celine Shih,” she said.

“Celine …” Harry blinked.

“What,” Draco said, “that woman from the Scavengers’ Guild?”

Hermione kept rummaging. “ _It’s a spell I developed,_ ” she recited. “ _You start on a broom, and narrow down on a trace of magic. … In barren areas, Muggle areas, it finds a breadcrumb and leads you down the trail. …_ Oh, Merlin’s pants— _Accio!_ ”

Out from the depths of the bag, into her waiting hand, flew the piece of parchment that she’d placed into it three months ago, in Diagon Alley. She unfolded the parchment, upon which the Scavenger-in-Chief had written a set of instructions with a peahen feather quill.

* * *

Narcissa woke early on Sunday morning.

All week, she and Lucius had debated going to Halfhold Hill. With the Weasleys in Azkaban, they knew it was a risk. But they also knew that the Order had been in contact at the burning of the Manor, and if any of them had been able to pass their message to Draco … if there was any chance at all that they might reunite with him …

“We’ll go early,” she murmured to Lucius that morning in bed, before the Muggle had made their breakfast. “We’ll set protective enchantments.” She’d added caveat after caveat until finally she whispered, “Draco … Draco.”

Then, at last, her husband had nodded. Narcissa had pressed her lips to his cheek, to the alabaster skin that was only now starting to regain its glow after his year in Azkaban.

They arrived at Halfhold Hill an hour and a half early to set the enchantments, when the moon was still high.

It wasn’t early enough.

They had hardly appeared at the apex of the hill when Narcissa felt herself flung back against the tree that grew there, bound in place, her wand jerked from her hand. She tasted blood, tried to grab for her wand, and found herself immobilised.

“Always early to engagements, weren’t we, Cissy?” breathed a voice at Narcissa’s shoulder, and when her vision stabilised, Bella’s Disillusionment was fading.

Her sister’s presence rendered Narcissa speechless. Bella was dressed, as always, as if for an evening event, in magnificent black robes. She had always had the dramatic good looks, Bella, and when she gave Narcissa that theatrical pout, her long lashes lowered over her dark eyes, Narcissa could almost see her older sister as she’d been at Hogwarts: the life of the Slytherin table, viciously protective of her and Andromeda. Neither of them had ever been as vivacious, as confident, as naturally talented as the eldest Black sister.

“Well, this _is_ a shame,” Bella said, spinning Lucius’s wand in one hand and Narcissa’s in the other. “8 o’clock isn’t for so long yet … we’ll have to wait a long while for dear Draco to join us. Whatever will we do to entertain ourselves?”

She drew her own wand again, that blackthorn instrument that had felled so many. It gleamed in the moonlight like a blade.

“Bellatrix,” Lucius said. “No. N—”

But Bella had already placed her wand to Lucius’s chest. There was a _bang,_ and into his body issued some curse that made him twitch like a spider under water.

“Bella!” Narcissa cried. “ _Bella!_ ” Still he twitched and jerked beside her, Lucius, helpless for a year, already shamed and humiliated for so long—“Your own family?” Narcissa screamed.

The curse broke. “Family?” Bella hissed, and now her nose was two inches from Narcissa’s, dark eyes filled with hatred that Narcissa had never seen directed at her. For the first time in her life, she saw her sister as the rest of the world must. “ _You_ are no family of mine!” Bella spat. “You knew what this would do to me—this betrayal … when we lost Andromeda, I thought I’d had the worst of it!”

Bella let out a mad, wretched sound that was half-laugh, half-sob, and Narcissa remembered Bella lying on her bed as they listened to Andromeda expelled from their home for the last time. Bella, who never wept, whose job it was to be strong always, forceful always— _Andromeda made this choice,_ she’d snarled, _it was her own choice._ Yet her eyes had been bright with tears.

“You turn tail and work for the Order of the Phoenix,” Bella tore on, “you leave me as if I am nothing, and now you use _family_ against me—”

“We did nothing for the Order.” Narcissa’s voice was a harsh whisper. Lucius was still trembling beside her. “Use Legilimency on me if you must—I am telling you the truth, Bella! Draco was certain that the Dark Lord would kill us all for his failure; he did not trust that Severus’s actions would save us. … So, my son accepted Albus Dumbledore’s protection for us all, but we never advanced their cause.”

“ _Your son_ ,” Bella sneered, “ _has_ joined the Order! He battled with them at the burning of your own home! He—”

“Draco has been outnumbered and surrounded for months,” Narcissa snapped. “Can you be certain he was not under the Imperius Curse? Can you know that his life did not depend on his actions at the manor?”

Bella hesitated, but her face was still contorted in a snarl. “And so? So what? You admit that you accepted the protection of the Muggle-lover Dumbledore. You feel no shame in it?”

“The choice was not ours to make. Draco was a child, not even of age when he trusted his life to Dumbledore, and once we were reunited with Draco under Dumbledore’s protection, we could hardly slink back to the Dark Lord’s service.”

“You could have tried,” Bella hissed. “You were with the Order, you were with Potter, you _saw_ Potter, surely you could have summoned the Death Eaters to him! The Dark Lord would have forgiven your failures if you only—”

“When?” said Narcissa coldly. “When were we meant to call him to Potter? When we were shut up in a house bound by the Fidelius Charm, unable to indicate its location? A month later, when we were surrounded by the Order in that hovel of the Weasleys’, when we would surely have seemed like traitors for the Death Eaters to kill on sight, after four weeks’ supposed death? There would have been no time to explain ourselves in battle.”

“Then you should have faced death!” Bellatrix’s spittle landed on Narcissa’s cheek. “You should have accepted the risk to prove your loyalty!”

Narcissa stared at her sister and felt something like despair. She had thought, when Bella agreed to cast the Unbreakable Vow in secret for her and Severus, that Bella still valued family above all else. … Had she been wrong?

“Neither Lucius nor I,” Narcissa whispered, “will invite our deaths while our son lives, Bella. Neither will we invite death within a mile of Draco. I had thought you felt the same of me.”

Bella’s fury quavered like a plucked string as pain glanced across her face. Her cheeks were patched with red.

“We can give the Dark Lord the boy,” Lucius rasped. His body had finally stopped twitching, although his facial muscles gave a violent spasm with every few words.

Bellatrix slowly turned her eyes to Lucius. She did not react.

“Bellatrix,” he went on, with a hint of his old charm, “we know that of the two of us, you are the formidable fighter … we also know I am the strategist. Has it not always been this way, in the Dark Lord’s service? After decades of serving him side by side, you are quick to assume the worst.”

A muscle twitched in Bella’s cheek. She gave a haughty sniff.

“Our son disappeared in July with Potter,” Lucius went on, “and the Weasley brat, and that Mudblood girl. If he was seen at the manor with the Mudblood, it stands to reason he must be with Potter.”

“I know that,” Bella snapped. “We know where the Order has set their hidey-hole, and yes, your son has been staying there with the worst kind of filth wizardkind has to offer … make your point, Lucius.”

“If Draco meets us here in an hour,” Lucius went on, unaffected, “he will take us to that hidey-hole, as you say … we will be shunned, ignored—and so we will be privy to every scrap of information that that pack of lowbloods and half-breeds has to offer. Draco may even have succeeded in gaining Potter’s trust over the past several months, which will make luring the boy out from their headquarters exceptionally easy. Potter need only make one misstep, Apparate to one vulnerable location … Draco can assist us in laying this trap.”

Narcissa did not look at her husband. She didn’t know how much of this he was saying in earnest, but while Narcissa knew Bella, the sister, Lucius knew Bellatrix, the lieutenant. They spoke different languages, and Narcissa could see that Lucius’s plan intrigued Bellatrix.

“You have not told the Dark Lord we live, of course,” Lucius said smoothly. “I would do the same myself … we seem debased, I admit. Blood traitor would be too kind a term.”

A tiny noise that might have been the start of a laugh was snapped off from Bella’s lips, half-formed.

“But think of what would best serve the Dark Lord.” Lucius’s voice showed a hint of urgency. “Would you kill us and throw away this opportunity, Bella? … This chance to plunge not one but three spies into the midst of the Order? Together our family can destroy their last efforts, and give him Potter—and when we do, this ruse will be forgiven as if it were nothing. We will be lifted even above Severus in his esteem.” Lucius paused. “We will be no shame to you, if you will let us help you.”

For the first time since they had appeared on the hill, Bella’s face was near calm—her ever-roving eyes the exception. Narcissa could see a hint of longing in her face. She knew that Bella had desired for years to be the one to hand the Potter boy to the Dark Lord.

“You would be ideally positioned,” Bella murmured, “to relate the Order’s plans to the Death Eaters … yes, to draw Potter into the open … surely he is Secret-Keeper? With Potter gone, the whole structure will fall.”

“Then give us a way to speak with you, Bella,” Narcissa said. “We cannot be seen leaving their headquarters to make reports. Mirrors, perhaps, like the ones …” She trailed off, not wanting to mention Sirius or Andromeda, which might inflame Bella’s temper again. Andromeda had been close to their cousin in their youth; the pair had used two-way mirrors to speak over summers. Perhaps it was this private connection that had started them both down the regrettable roads they’d walked.

After a long, silent moment of consideration, Bella Disapparated. When she reappeared fifteen minutes later, she held a pair of those mirrors, small and tarnished. Perhaps they were even the same ones that Andromeda and Sirius had shared.

Finally, Bella flicked her wand, and the ropes that bound the Malfoys to the tree disappeared. Narcissa’s knees buckled. She took a deep, full breath until her ribs ached. Then she arranged her fine blonde hair over her shoulders and considered Bella with the twin mirrors in her hands.

Narcissa was not naïve about her sister’s nature. She knew that Bella was ruthless and violent, that she had killed many in the Dark Lord’s service. Still, before this morning, Narcissa would never have thought her sister capable of doing violence to her family, to their sacred blood.

Now she saw that Azkaban had rebuilt Bella from heart to flesh to mind. The ferociously loyal sister of their youth was still there, but she had undergone alchemy, she was a new substance. Her loyalty was now to one thing only.

Narcissa knew that if she betrayed Bella in this, her sister would stop at nothing until she murdered Draco, until she murdered Lucius, until she finally killed Narcissa. She knew it to her core, knew it down to the order of the deaths. That would be how Bellatrix carried them out, to make sure Narcissa felt the most agony.

The knowledge seemed to change the world around Narcissa, to dull the sun and sky, to allow the winter cold to pierce all the way into her bones. _I am the only Black sister left,_ Narcissa thought distantly. The others had frayed away from the tapestry into their own universes. Perhaps the old world was already gone. Perhaps to try and hold to it was madness.

Narcissa felt thin and weary. She wanted to crawl back into bed. Only the thought of Draco kept her posture rigid, as she had learned to hold herself. She would do what must be done for their survival.

She extended a hand to her sister, and Bella pressed the mirror into her palm. Narcissa wrapped her fingers over the cold metal, accepting her duty. For a moment neither let go.

“If you betray me,” Bella whispered.

“I know,” Narcissa said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this world is just full of healthy familial dynamics huh
> 
> [tumbl away with me :)](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	21. A Meeting With the Malfoys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> deadline is conquered and so WE ARE BACK! please remember that projected update times can always be found at my tumblr, url batmansymbol, if you click on the left sidebar where it says "disappearances updates!"
> 
> i have also added chapter titles. we can have alliterative chapter titles, as a treat

Draco lay awake for a long time on Sunday morning. All was quiet. At this moment there was no sign that the sleepy Potter Cottage was the epicentre of the nation’s rebellion against Lord Voldemort. Headquarters was blanketed in the deep hush of dawn about to come, the only sound Hermione’s deep breathing.

As Draco watched her shadowed face, she frowned lightly in sleep as though even now she were solving a conundrum. He had realised over the past few days how much he enjoyed watching Hermione, at rest or in motion, directing the others or chewing a quill thoughtfully. Even more, he relished the moments she seemed to remember him out of nowhere, pausing mid-step and scanning the room until her eyes caught his.

Draco had watched Hermione Granger hurrying through the halls of Hogwarts for six years, and yet somehow—all that time—he’d failed to see her at all. Now he didn’t want to blink, lest he miss a second.

Dawn was rising outside, however, and it was nearly time for him to go to Halfhold Hill.

In the hubbub of meeting preparations, Draco had managed to suppress his dread for the past few days, but now, looking at Hermione’s sleeping face, a new fear struck. What if his parents’ presence at headquarters changed her feelings toward him? Surely, with his mother and father living alongside Hagrid, Hermione would think more and more about third year. Draco remembered himself in the hospital wing that year, clutching his perfectly healed arm, owling home to say that the injury should be grounds for firing the blundering halfwit responsible.

He rose to his feet and began to dress, suddenly unable to keep looking at Hermione, even feeling the need to put distance between them. A wave of embarrassment and frustration was cresting over him. His parents had been strict when they wanted. They could have sent Draco a return owl telling him to heal quickly and get back to his schoolwork soon … but no. They’d seen an opportunity to cleanse Hogwarts of Hagrid. How many times had his father referred to the gamekeeper as a disgrace to the school, a savage, Dumbledore’s pet barbarian?

How many times had Draco done the same?

As Draco fastened on his winter cloak, he tried to clear his mind, but since the Manor, the thoughts had grown inescapable. He had even begun to _dream_ of things he’d said and done before this year, which replayed over and over in his subconscious so vividly that he awoke feeling unrested. Every single action bore undercurrents of shame or guilt. When he brushed his teeth, he remembered Hermione’s front teeth growing painfully long, her eyes filling with tears as he and Crabbe and Goyle were wracked by paroxysms of laughter. When he ate, he thought of her furious words in the Room of Hidden Things when she’d demanded he answer for Dobby, who had been beaten near-daily while cooking his meals and cleaning his clothes.

Draco told himself the endless rumination was idiotic, that it was functionally useless, that—in Dobby’s case, at least—he had been too young to really understand … but it went on and on. It made him want to push Hermione away, to keep her from being contaminated. It made him want to cling to her, terrified that she would come to her senses and go.

Draco’s eyes slipped to the clock on the wall. It was time.

He let himself watch Hermione for one last moment. She was stirring, now, in her cotton pyjamas.

He Disapparated.

Halfhold Hill was freezing and windswept, the sky a tortured purple. Draco looked around, and for a single moment he thought he was alone, that it was another false trail.

Then two figures came out from behind the single massive tree whose roots were sunk deep into the hill. His father, tall and still too thin from Azkaban, hair on the silver side of blonde. His mother, her cheeks chapped red by the wind.

The Malfoys were not an expressive family. But at that moment, his parents were gazing at him as if they had seen an apparition, their faces betraying love and strain and relief. In that instant of seeing them alive, Draco’s fears were overwhelmed by another feeling that bloomed in his chest. He remembered the feeling of pride he’d felt all his life—pride that he was a Malfoy.

Although he had changed, he was _still_ a Malfoy. He always would be. Malfoys were subtle and assured, resilient and resourceful. Malfoys glided over every obstacle toward each other.

“Mother,” Draco greeted in a thin, somewhat shaky voice. “Father.”

Wordless, they strode forward and embraced him.

#

“No need to be nervous, Hermione,” Fred said airily, gesturing with his fork.

“None whatsoever,” George said. “If those pasty gits say a word to you—”

“—we’ll collapse their tent while they’re sleeping,” Fred finished through a mouthful of toast.

Hermione tried to smile. “That’s not what I’m nervous about. I’m perfectly able to handle whatever they say to me.”

“Then why are you worried?” Luna said with a curious tilt of her head.

Trying to think quickly, Hermione chewed a mouthful of eggs for far too long a time, but Professor McGonagall spoke first.

“I will admit,” said McGonagall with lips pursed, sitting on the very edge of her armchair, “I’ve had a number of security concerns.”

“Y-yes,” Hermione said, setting her plate on the coffee table. She cleared her throat so her voice would fill the cottage’s front room. “Yes, but I think our precautions should hold. Confiscating the Malfoys’ wands, that is."

“And remember, everyone,” Harry said from the mantel, “we’re keeping details of our plans with our smaller teams, so nobody knows all the dates and specifics. That’ll be safer if—if anything goes wrong.”

Hermione glanced at the clock. “Two minutes. Draco said he’d fill them in on the state of things, but they’ll be here at half-nine.”

The front room dissolved into a tense hum of discussion. As Luna and Bill, on kitchen duty, shuttled dirty plates to the kitchen, Hermione pretended to look through a calendar of the next month, which she had already checked four times that morning.

She hadn’t lied. She _wasn’t_ worried about what Lucius or Narcissa Malfoy might say to her. But she couldn’t help worrying—with a hint of guilt—about their influence over Draco. He had already been tense over the last week, with ten new people to contend with at Headquarters, none of whom were making any effort to pretend they liked or respected him. Who was to say that with his parents in the mix, exuding the same mixture of prejudice and superiority they’d fed him his entire life, he wouldn’t slip back into certain old habits?

When Hermione considered the past few months, spent under such tightly controlled conditions, learning to trust each other with their lives … it all suddenly seemed so delicate, exposed to this many new variables at once.

She’d spoken to Draco about his parents last night as they’d drifted off to sleep, but the conversation had felt strained. “Are you ready?” she murmured.

“Mostly.” He’d half-smiled. “But I doubt I’ll be getting any Son of the Year awards, Granger, having just burned down our house.”

She’d managed a cross between a laugh, a wince, and a grimace, but it had faded quickly. She remembered the way he’d looked after Disapparating from the wreck of his home, stricken, ash caught in his brows like dark clusters of snow.

“I’m sorry about the manor,” she’d whispered under the covers, realising that in the panic after the battle, she had never said the words.

“You didn’t cast the Fiendfyre,” Draco had said.

“I know, of course I didn’t. But if I’d only gotten away from Flint a minute faster …”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” A muscle had worked in his jaw. “You don’t … you never have to say that to me.”

Hermione had hesitated, unsure how to reply. Draco’s voice had been strained, but not in the way she’d expected, with anger or grief about his lost home, or with worry of relaying the story to his parents. He held her gaze like someone forcing himself to look into bright light, the fine muscles around his eyes contracting.

Then he’d kissed her and said, “I need sleep,” and that had been the end of it.

Now Hermione shuffled her notes again and wished she’d pushed the subject. They had never even properly defined their relationship. Draco was not her boyfriend; even the term seemed ridiculous amid the war, and yet, faced with the prospect that he might pull away, she found herself wishing that they’d made some guarantee to each other. What if all this was only a minor detour in the path of his life? …

 _It isn’t,_ she thought, glaring down at the calendar with hard resolve. Left to his own devices, this was the way Draco had chosen. This was who he really was. She believed that.

Hermione’s head shot up as three muffled _CRACK_ sounds came from outside. Then the door was opening, and a hush fell over the Order as Draco entered, followed by Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.

Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy looked well-fed and well-coiffed, but of course they did, having treated a Muggle as a servant since they’d lived in London. Hermione felt a rush of dislike, and she saw similar reactions from the rest of the Order. McGonagall’s eyes were frost, and Hagrid’s enormous hands clenched into fists as he glared down the man who’d tried to have Buckbeak executed. Ginny’s mouth was a hard line.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Harry said shortly but not rudely, stepping to the front of the group. “Mrs. Malfoy. Has Draco told you the conditions of staying here?”

Lucius Malfoy’s lip curled ever so slightly. “Yes, Potter.”

A shiver ran down Hermione’s spine. Even after all this time, she could still hear the smooth, satisfied voice echoing behind the mask at the Department of Mysteries.

Unspeaking, Draco held up his mother’s and father’s confiscated wands.

Harry nodded. “We’ll keep your wands hidden and safe. In the event of an emergency, we’ll return them to you straightaway.”

“Very reassuring,” said Narcissa Malfoy in her cool, haughty tones.

Harry’s expression tightened. “Look,” he said. “We don’t expect you to help us, but Professor Dumbledore promised the Order would keep you safe. We’ll keep that promise.”

After a pause, the Malfoys lowered their heads in slight, disdainful nods.

“You’ll be staying in our new tent,” Fred said, sounding as if he would rather have burned the tent than have it suffer such a fate.

“It’s kitted out with its own kitchen,” George added gruffly, “so, you can eat in there.”

Harry nodded. “We’ll bring you groceries once a week. Or …” He hesitated, glancing at Hermione, then Draco. “Or, you can eat with the rest of us. But that means doing your share of the chores, whenever and whatever Hermione assigns us.”

Slowly, finally, the Malfoys’ eyes moved onto her. Their faces twisted as if they’d been asked to lean in and smell a clogged drain.

Hermione’s back straightened. She could feel her face flooding with heat, her thoughts clouding with the beginnings of anger.

“Have you mistaken us for servants, Potter?” said Lucius, voice taut. “Scrubbing dishes on the orders of a Mudbl—”

Hermione felt the rest of the Order surging up as one, ready to come to her defence, but they were all too slow. With one long stride, Draco cut in front of his father, blocking Hermione from view. One uneven syllable burst out: “No.”

A deafening silence fell in the front room.

Draco’s narrow shoulders were rising and falling. Several of the Order were staring at his back. The Malfoys, too, were looking at their son as though they’d never seen him before.

Draco smoothed back his hair. Hermione could just see the tremble at his fingertips.

“No,” he repeated, breathing still unsteady, “we wouldn’t do more work than anyone else. Because Hermione—” No one missed the slight stress he added to her name— “divides it all evenly.”

The silence continued to ring. Hermione only realised she was biting her cheek when she tasted blood. Lucius had gone the glazed white colour of fine china. She half expected his face to twist into anger and shock, to demand if his son was Confunded or worse.

But Narcissa was the first to recover. She adjusted her fur-lined cloak and said slowly, her eyes moving critically over Draco’s face, “Yes, Draco. We’ll take dinner here, then.”

Lucius glanced at his wife. After a long moment, he dipped his head in a single nod.

Hermione exchanged a startled look with Harry. They’d extended the olive branch for Draco’s sake, in the hope that there wouldn’t be such palpable loathing in headquarters. They hadn’t really expected the Malfoys to _agree_ to eat with the Order.

As Fred and George led the Malfoys down the hall toward the back door, Draco hurried up the stairs with his parents’ wands, and Hermione felt a hint of cautious optimism, the first she’d felt about this whole situation.

Not only had Draco stood up to his parents—they hadn’t even turned on him for doing so. It seemed that Draco’s word was more important to them than their right to spew whatever foul prejudice they liked.

Draco had told her once that his mother and father had never associated with anyone beyond the pure-blood world. Hermione had wondered, if they’d had different childhoods, whether there would have been a chance for them to change. Now she wondered, as they disappeared out of the back exit, whether their son could give them that chance after all.

#

Draco was aware of more stares from the Order than usual that day. “You’d think I killed someone,” he muttered when he and Hermione finally slipped into the reading room after lunch.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she told him with a smile. “It’s the opposite. You defended me to your parents. The others are starting to realise they’ve been making some poor assumptions the past week.”

As she spread out some of their notes, Draco made himself turn away, pretending to peruse the books in the library. He wanted to look at her, to see her smile. He had heard the pleasure in her voice—and yet shame coiled in his stomach. It seemed far too generous to call what he’d done a _defence_. It had started that way, certainly. He’d strode in front of his parents intending to tell his father with his iciest tones never to say that word to Hermione, never even to look at her that way again.

But then he’d looked into his parents’ faces and seen their alarm at his intervention. In their moment of disorientation, he hadn’t wanted to embarrass or abandon them, leave them isolated in a room of people who already loathed them.

 _But I should have done it,_ Draco thought, a bitter taste in his mouth. Any other Order member would have told his father never to say the word, to treat Hermione with some respect. And yet he, Draco, who needed more than anyone in the room to atone—to defend her properly, after so many years of jeering at her himself—he’d failed at the last minute. He’d even tortured himself with the thought that Hermione might have been better off with the Weasel King after all, who at least would have made a stronger retort to his father.

His parents hadn’t mentioned it at lunch, of course. The meal hadn’t been entirely unbearable. He’d strategically sat with his parents near Fleur and Luna, who seemed to feel the least outright hatred for Lucius and Narcissa. At the end, he’d told his parents somewhat stiffly that he would be in the library for the day.

But that passing fact had contained a lie by omission, too. He hadn’t mentioned he’d be with Hermione and Potter in the library—still hadn’t admitted he’d joined the Order.

He’d made no real gestures toward the person he thought he had made himself. And if he was hiding that person, hiding his choices, didn’t it invalidate them?

Draco stared hard at a peeling volume of counter-jinxes, his head awhirl. _Coward,_ he thought bitterly.

Soon enough Harry arrived from washing up, and Draco tried to focus as they passed the afternoon in slow frustration. They tried a long list of hexes and counter-curses to try and open Slytherin’s locket, to no avail. Gryffindor’s sword waited uselessly on the sofa behind them.

After a few hours of this, Potter turned the locket over and over in his hands. “Do either of you know what the locket was meant for?”

“Meant for?” Hermione repeated.

“Yeah. Gryffindor’s sword appears to the brave, the Diadem made you cleverer. Does the locket have a story around it the same way?”

“Yeah,” Draco said, “not that it’s much use to us now that it’s a Horcrux. It was meant to hold a secret.”

“A secret?” Hermione said, looking curious. “You mean like a Secret-Keeper with the Fidelius Charm?”

Draco nodded. “Some people think Salazar Slytherin was the one to come up with the Fidelius Charm, and it was based on the locket’s enchantment.” He shrugged. “If the wearer was a Slytherin, they’d be able to put a secret inside the locket, and it’d never open, and the secret could never be repeated.”

Potter considered the locket. “What if we whispered a secret into the locket? Maybe we’ve got to bribe it with information, or something.”

But they each, in turn, took it into the corner of the library and whispered to the locket, and nothing happened.

The locket’s impenetrability was so discouraging that they wound up abandoning it to talk about Hufflepuff’s Cup instead, although they had not a single lead. Even with no information on the cup, though, the weeks to come looked busy. As the evening approached, Hermione spread Celine Shih’s instructions out and explained what they would need to do to find the Elder Wand.

“It’s a spell-directed compass,” she said. “I’d hoped it would be a simple spell that we could learn right away, and we could start looking for the wand now … but we’ll need to steep a compass in a particular potion that stews for three weeks, and during that time, we’ll need to master a rather tricky spell in order to control the compass once it’s finished.”

“So for three weeks, we just hope that Snape doesn’t find the wand first?” said Potter, scrubbing his hands through his hair in frustration. “And—what, we just hope that he doesn’t hurt Ron while he’s at it?”

“Potter,” Draco sighed, “we still don’t even know that Snape _has_ Weasley, or that Snape knows he’s the master of the Elder Wand.”

Hermione gave a determined nod, although when she spoke, she sounded as if she was convincing herself. “Yes. Snape may not even know the Elder Wand exists. … It’s an arcane story.”

As evening fell, Harry left to check on the rest of the Order’s status, leaving Hermione and Draco alone in the library.

“One more thing,” Hermione said as she slid Gryffindor’s sword back into her small beaded bag.

“Yeah?” Draco said, his stomach dropping. Her voice sounded guarded. Maybe she had been thinking about his interaction with his father. Maybe she, too, had decided it wasn’t enough.

“I’ve found a lead on an Unraveling Charm that I think will be able to undo the magic in your Dark Mark.”

Draco’s mind went temporarily blank.

She turned to him, face set with determination. “I know it’ll be an unpleasant process,” she said in a rush, “and unfortunately we’ll have to experiment a bit, which could be risky, but I really think that with multiple Order members in Azkaban and what you said to Pansy, we should prepare for your secrecy to be compromised, and if—”

“Get it off me,” Draco said. He was not prepared for how low and ragged his voice sounded.

Hermione broke off. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Whatever you have to do.” Draco’s jaw was clenched. “I want it off. Every time I look at it, I think of …”

“Of what he did,” she finished.

Draco looked at her and felt another wrench inside him. _Of what I did,_ he thought, but he couldn’t say it.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been strange all afternoon. Is it your parents?”

“Yeah.”

She sighed. “Yes, well, we always knew it would be complicated when they arrived, didn’t we?” She paused. “In some ways I thought it seemed promising.”

“Promising?” A startled, slightly deranged laugh burst from Draco. “What about that little introduction was _promising?_ ”

Hermione didn’t laugh, just lifted her chin in a dignified way and said, “They listened to you.”

Draco hesitated, the twisted non-smile falling from his features as he studied hers. He’d been so focussed on his weak defence that he hadn’t really thought about his parents’ reaction to it … but Hermione was right. He had never flouted his parents’ authority in public before. If he had disagreements, he made them in private, where they wouldn’t tarnish the family’s image as an unshakable unit. Yet they hadn’t reprimanded him for doing so.

“That’s true,” Draco said slowly.

He and Hermione looked at each other for a long, tense moment. Draco hadn’t ever let himself consider the idea that his parents might accept them—accept this. It seemed impossible, beyond too good to be true, out of reality.

And yet they’d never spent so long in Muggle London before. Was it so impossible that they had softened, even the tiniest bit? Maybe not enough for full acceptance, or even tolerance … but enough for Draco to keep his parents in this new life?

He needed to talk to them.

#

Draco’s mouth was dry as he stooped to enter his parents’ tent. The Weasley twins’ second purchase was as gaudy and overdecorated as the first, although this tent was, at least, spared the Gryffindor colour scheme.

“Draco,” said his mother with a small smile, and it washed over him again—the surrealness of the fact that he could simply enter a tent and see them, after so many months wondering if they were even alive.

His mother and father were at the head of the chiselled mahogany table, casually elegant, as if sitting for a portrait. The sight reminded Draco of the moment he’d brought his O.W.L. results to the Manor’s twenty-foot banquet table to share with them. His parents had not been outright displeased—achieving nine O.W.L.s, with four Outstanding results in Potions, Transfiguration, History of Magic, and Astronomy, was nothing to sniff at. Still, he knew they had hoped for a prodigious result, and their disappointment had radiated coldly over the table for the next week.

Draco’s mouth was now so dry that his throat had begun to itch. He stepped closer to the table. As much as he’d chastised himself all day for not saying more in Hermione’s defence, right now, standing across from his parents, it felt pathetically impressive that he’d managed to say a word.

His parents exchanged a look. His father gave his mother the tiniest shake of his head, as if in warning.

Draco narrowed his eyes, but before he could ask what they’d obviously been discussing before he’d arrived, Lucius said, “Come sit, Draco.”

He slid a tumbler across the table with a thumb of Firewhisky in its depths. Clearly they had expected him. Clearly, too, they had no qualms about drinking from the Weasley twins’ well-stocked cabinet.

Draco took the tumbler and settled into the chair at his father’s left hand. “Thank you,” he said, steeling himself. “Father, I wanted us to talk about what happened in the cottage, earlier.”

“There is nothing to explain, Draco,” his father said smoothly. “We understand.”

“You—you do?”

“Naturally. Trapped in this place, with all this …” Lucius let his eyes travel toward the tent flap, distaste lifting one corner of his lip. “Of course you need to play to their rules. We all must, for the time being. … So, we surrender our wands. We speak civilly to the half-breeds and the rest. I forgot myself.”

“You have been who you’ve needed to be to stay safe,” his mother said, laying one delicate hand over Draco’s.

“And you’ve done quite well besides,” murmured his father, rising to his feet. “You’ve stayed unharmed, you’ve brought us here—you’ve even remained close to Potter.” Lucius strolled to the enchanted window, which showed a dark, moonlit slope covered in snow. He took a sip of his Firewhisky. “Perhaps you could have made more decisive moves, but under the circumstances … assimilation was the best strategy.”

Draco didn’t reply, nor move. His heart was falling with every sentence. This, then, was why they’d accepted his interruption: his parents thought he’d been acting to fit in with the Order. A question of image.

They were just as rigid, just as decided, as they had always been. When he told them the truth, he would meet every ounce of resistance he had imagined.

Draco slid his hand out from beneath his mother’s to raise his glass of Firewhisky to his lips. He didn’t allow his hands to shake.

“The … the Manor,” he managed to say. Another evasion, another sidestep, and the thought ran forcefully through his head again: _Coward._

“We know you’re not to blame,” said Narcissa at once, although her face contracted.

Lucius let out a short, icy laugh. “I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised our home was made a sacrifice to _the cause_. Why should Dumbledore’s followers care about sites of Wizarding history?”

“But that was Crabbe,” Draco said quickly. “The Fiendfyre. The _Prophet_ reported it differently. Skeeter was—”

Lucius waved Draco’s uneven explanation away with one simple gesture, his eyes still fixed coldly on the tent flap. “If the people in that cottage hadn’t decided to enter that gala, Draco, our family would still have its ancestral seat. They are to blame. Always remember who is to blame,” he added confidentially to Draco with a short nod—volumes of trust in the tiny motion.

Draco closed his eyes and saw the Manor burning. So, if he revealed he had joined the Order, his parents would place the loss of their home on his shoulders after all.

Fear and hesitance churned in his stomach. How was he supposed to say any of it, take their willingness to believe the best of him and rip it to shreds? But there was also resentment and frustration: how could they _be_ this way, apparently unchanged after the previous year’s humiliations?

Draco took another sip of Firewhisky. He had to start somewhere. Pragmatism: his parents were always open to what was most advantageous for the family. It was as good an initial angle as any.

“I—I’ve been thinking, Father. Mother.” Draco felt his voice rise higher. “And I think it’s safer for our family to stay with the Order than go abroad.”

His parents traded another one of those inscrutable looks. Then Lucius set his tumbler on a bookshelf and said, “Draco, come. You must think more ambitiously. … Think of the best option. Our true place in society is not abroad, and nor is it—” Lucius waved a hand around at the tent, contempt and bitterness showing on his narrow face. “ _Here_. You may have some superficial comforts with the Order, but it is the Dark Lord’s vision that has always been greatest and most comprehensive.”

Draco looked into the grey eyes so like his own, not understanding. His father was speaking as if the last year and a half hadn’t happened. As if, somehow, he expected them to join with Voldemort again.

“Wait,” he said, trying to conceal his rising suspicion. “In summer, we were talking about leaving the country. America, New Zealand. We thought that was our only chance.”

“Circumstances change, Draco. We mustn’t settle for a lesser option, when—”

“But it’s better here than it was at the Manor,” Draco said loudly. His hands were clasped tight around his Firewhisky. His heart was beating hard in his ears. What was it about speaking to his parents that made him sound like such a child? “Last year was a nightmare. We all know it. If we really care what’s best for us, we can’t to go back to _that._ Everything was loads better when everyone still thought he was dead.”

Lucius blanched, and Narcissa twitched. His mother’s eyes even flicked to the side—that old habit, prepared for someone to overhear their disloyalty.

Then Lucius said, with the air of a politician making a passionate speech, “Draco, you have never seen the Dark Lord’s world at its best. You’ve seen only the turmoil of the transition. Before you were born, we were free in a way you cannot even imagine. Pure-bloods were respected in the way we deserved, not ground down by this parade of lesser wizards, even part-humans, _sub_ -humans, demanding more and more.”

Lucius strode back to the table and gripped the back of the upholstered chair at its head, the lines in his face set there by Azkaban more obvious than ever. “The world of the Dark Lord is the world _you_ deserve. It’s what this family and our descendants deserve. Once his reign settles, with us on the right side, any door will be open to you.”

Draco set his glass hard on the table. “That’s what Aunt Bella told me before I started school last year. Just do this, and we’ll have everything. But it didn’t turn out that way, did it?” He looked from his father to his mother. Draco’s pulse was racing now, and he was halfway to shouting, but before he could say anything else, his mother rose to her feet, radiating icy poise in the way she always could.

“I was afraid that this had happened,” she said, a note of urgency in her voice. “Being around these people has taken its toll on you. You must stop speaking this way, Draco.”

“Why? Who cares?” Draco let out a laugh, standing too. “What, are we planning to sign back up if the resistance collapses? You really think the Death Eaters will take us back after we faked our deaths to get away from them?”

His father stepped to his mother’s side. Narcissa wrapped her fingers tightly around Lucius’s arm, and they traded one more look.

“There is a way,” Lucius breathed. “We are _here,_ Draco. We must watch and wait, as always. Potter has clearly grown to trust you. … We must be open to opportunities. Do you understand?”

Draco tried to swallow, but the lump in his throat was like concrete. He knew what all those euphemisms meant. He cursed his own foolishness—how had he failed to plan for this? Of course his parents, welcomed into the headquarters of the Order, would be thinking about how to use the valuable information within. And with their wands gone, his parents were surely thinking of him as the linchpin of the plan. They would rely on him to try and make contact with the Death Eaters.

His parents’ shoulders were tensed, their faces alert. They were waiting for some sort of cue.

But before Draco could speak, there was a voice from outside. “Draco,” called Potter, “are you in there?”

Draco startled. “Y-yeah.”

Potter stuck his head through the tent flap. “You’re needed inside.”

Draco could feel his parents bristling at the idea of his being summoned by Harry Potter, but they didn’t speak.

He left the mahogany table and walked stiffly toward Potter. But as he reached the edge of the Persian rug, he slowed, then stopped. He turned on his heel and looked back at his parents.

What he had come to do poured through his mind. Draco could even see it, hear himself telling them, _I wasn’t acting to fit in with the Order. I’ve joined them. I’m finished with the Death Eaters and everything they told me to think. The Muggle-born girl you tried to insult earlier—she trusts me more than you ever did, she cares about who I really am, not who she thinks I should be. I’m working with her and Potter to defeat the Dark Lord, and it’ll be better for our family in the end, and you aren’t going to stop us._

Would his mother break into panicked tears, saying, _My own son—a blood traitor,_ would his father spit at him to _Get out_ with the loss of composure Draco had only ever seen a few times in Lucius, livid and terrifying? Would they close the tent to him forever? And even if the Horcruxes were destroyed, the world returned to its old self, would his parents bar him from their lives? Would Draco be penniless and alone, his parents relaying his betrayal to every family that had once invited him warmly into their homes?

“My bedroom is in the cottage,” Draco said to the rug, his voice carefully blank. “So I’ll see you at breakfast.”

He could feel their eyes on his back as they left.

The word thudded through his blood. _Coward._

#

The tent was silent for a long while after Draco left.

“Well,” Narcissa said eventually, settling back down at the dining table, “I see no evidence of a Confundus or Imperius.”

“No,” said Lucius, “but he was speaking about the Order far too leniently. Potter seems to have gotten to him.” He shook his head, looking troubled. “It was best, after all, for us not to tell him right away. … He may have given us up out of fear.”

Narcissa reached up beneath her robe, tugged Bellatrix’s mirror from the concealed pocket there, and turned it over and over in her hands. “Did Potter sway him, Lucius,” she said quietly, “or was it the last year? Draco is right. The Manor was a dreadful place as the Dark Lord’s base of operations. The Dark Lord himself as good as made an attempt on Draco’s life.”

“Narcissa—” Lucius sat at the head of the table and cradled one of her hands in both of his. “ _We have no choice_. To flee abroad is to invite your sister to track us to our deaths. And our time is short. With Order members in Azkaban under interrogation, we may not be able to stay hidden for very much longer, even with Bella suppressing the information. Our only real chance is to get our hands on Potter, or information equally vital to the Dark Lord, and return to the Death Eaters before we are exposed.”

Narcissa avoided his eyes, but her husband leaned closer until she could see the fear in his face—the fear that he might be returned, again, to the custody of the Dementors. “What is the alternative?” Lucius said in a harsh whisper. “Join the Order? Associate ourselves with—with that throng of part-humans and werewolves?” His face was twisted in disgust. “Have we sunk so low?”

“No,” Narcissa said quietly, but she was still turning over what Draco had said. It was not so surprising that her son would be sympathetic to the Order’s aims, even if he found the group itself repulsive. If the war was won, after all, the world would return to the one that he had grown up in, where he had been so comfortable.

 _We were comfortable, too,_ Narcissa thought. They had been respected, although it was true that they had needed to hold their tongue about Mudbloods and the like, with the shift in the prevailing culture.

Still, Lucius was right. They were the union of the Malfoy and the Black line, the culmination of two great houses. The thought of allying with the unsavouries in the Order made her feel delicate. Even to spend mealtimes with a half-giant and that Mudblood girl and a family of blood traitors felt unbearable enough, although the purpose was, of course, to pick information from the Order’s whispers.

Narcissa thought of what Bellatrix would have said. _Scum,_ she thought vaguely, disdainfully, but at the same time she remembered that her Mudblood brother-in-law had gone into hiding.

She wondered, with a prickling in her nerves, whether Andromeda would come to this place—the fallen Black sister, singed away from the portrait, lost to her decades ago.

When Narcissa closed her eyes, she tried to remember her sister’s face, but there was nothing there except darkness.

#

Draco followed Potter into Hermione’s bedroom. She was standing by the bed, upon which lay the locket. The Sword of Gryffindor gleamed silver beside the golden chain.

The second the door closed, Hermione flicked her wand toward the door and said, “ _Muffliato._ ”

Draco unfastened his winter cloak and flung it over the armchair. Then he came with Potter to stand before the bed, before the Horcrux.

“You’ve figured out how to open it?” Draco said, looking down at the locket.

Hermione nodded. “We haven’t tried it yet, but we’re quite sure.”

“Yeah,” Potter said, looking almost sheepish. “It’s stupid, how simple it seems. We were talking about how Slytherin would want to keep his secrets safe, and then I thought of the Chamber, and—”

Draco let out an exasperated sigh. “Parseltongue,” he said. It was twice as embarrassing that he, a Slytherin, hadn’t thought of it immediately.

“We think you should destroy it,” said Potter.

It was a moment before the words registered.

“Sorry, Potter,” said Draco, “I could’ve sworn you asked me to destroy my own House relic with Gryffindor’s sword.”

“Yeah, and that’s exactly why. You’re a Slytherin. A pure-blood, a Malfoy. Maybe it could help somehow.”

Draco considered for a long time, his eyes travelling from the sword to the locket. Hermione was eyeing him shrewdly.

“What?” he said to her, raising one brow.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, and if she had been anyone else, he would have challenged her. Instead he looked back to the objects lain before him.

“We’re not asking you to do it because we want you to—to renounce Slytherin, or something like that,” Hermione said quickly. “That’s not what this is. We know Slytherin is a part of you.”

Draco met her eyes again for a furtive second, some of his doubt fading. It was, in fact, exactly what he’d been thinking. Slytherin had given him a community, a value system, a simultaneous feeling of pride and persecution. He could never be anything else—and moreover, he didn’t want to be. He didn’t want to abandon Slytherin.

Draco knew what the rest of Hogwarts stubbornly refused to admit: that the ancient house of cunning and ambition, though they showed a unified face, were complex and individual. Slytherin may have been Crabbe and Millicent, allying themselves with power and not even loyal to their own friends … but it was also Pansy and Goyle, defending Draco to the Carrows while clinging to their disdain for the rest of the world; it was insecure Theo and detached Blaise, waiting to see which way the cards would fall. Slytherin was the murky fog of not having every answer innately. Slytherin was the long conflict before the resolution. Slytherin was Draco himself, and every day he decided what that meant.

He reached out with a nerveless hand and picked up the sword.

“All right,” said Potter, suddenly business-like. “I’ll open it, and you be ready for whatever comes out. Yeah?”

Potter was already scooping up the Horcrux and placing it upon a patch of floor enchanted to resemble stone. Draco jerked his head in a nervous nod, then stepped up, curling his hands around the sword hilt.

A hiss flowed out from Potter’s mouth.

The locket snapped open. Its interior surface was mirrored, and in each half of the locket, Draco saw one dark eye. The pair of eyes were clever and devouring. Though Draco had never seen them so young, untinged by madness, he knew at once that they were the eyes of Tom Riddle.

But as Draco raised Gryffindor’s sword, the eyes flashed red, and up from their crimson irises flowed a ghostly grey substance that formed into a silhouette. Draco staggered back—but the figure that materialised was not an enemy. It was not Aunt Bella or even Lord Voldemort.

The face looking back at him was his own, snivelling and stricken, the image of his sixth year.

A voice that was half his, half the sibilant hiss of Riddle, issued from the locket, while the ghostly Draco wept and heaved, terrified and desperate.

_“Draco Malfoy … sworn to eternal loyalty in my service … I see all that you long for.”_

Draco blanched. The voice, while half-his, was as terrible as the one that still occasionally shocked him awake in nightmares. The sword in his hand dipped.

“ _You wish for an end to fear … you wish for freedom. … But if you continue down this path, you shall never be free. When you look in the mirror you shall always see a coward. … Never healed, never whole.”_

The ghostly Draco’s face contorted. He looked around in obvious panic, a defensive panic that verged on hatred, and Draco knew immediately what he was seeing in the invisible distance: accusation, the loathing of thousands.

Someone was calling his name from very far away, but Draco couldn’t hear. He dimly remembered that he had been in a bedroom, but the sight was fading away, leaving only the locket glowing on the ground.

“ _The others will never truly forgive,”_ the voice hissed on. _“They will never truly forget. … You seek a new path, but you chose your road long ago.”_

And now two new figures were issuing from the locket, flanking him: Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, one at each shoulder, looking down at him with glowing pride. And the ghostly, panicked Draco was straightening, growing taller, his face untwisting, an air of smug certainty settling over him. The ghostly Draco opened his mouth and spoke the words himself.

“ _When I return to the service of the Dark Lord,”_ said Riddle-Draco, _“my parents will love me as they always have … I will be self-possessed and proud … I will be true at last to myself, to my family’s wishes, to what I have always been … I need never grovel beneath the hatred and judgments of others._ ”

And Draco felt it, then: the seductive rush of relief it would be to set down the whole endeavour, to be exactly who he was expected to be, forever. The destructive shame of the last week— _weeks,_ really, since he had started feeling all this guilt … it could be wiped away.

The whole world was dark but for the locket’s gold and the mist of the apparition. The apparition extended its hand, and Draco began to lift his own toward it.

But then, from very far away, Draco heard two voices echo.

The echoes were distant, faint, and yet there was something in them that compelled him to listen.

 _Draco,_ he heard. _Stab it! Draco!_

And he realised there was no hatred or judgment in those voices. There was fear for his safety. There was urgency and trust.

As he looked up into the ghostly Draco’s face, he thought, _No._

His hands tightened around the sword hilt. His mother and father had made these promises in the tent, and if he had not accepted them from his parents, he would never accept them from Voldemort, his torturer, no longer his master. He would never believe the lie again.

 _No,_ he was not a coward. He was a Malfoy, and a Slytherin, and a Seeker who would plunge always after what he desired, and what he desired was the world that didn’t yet exist—the one shining in some deep recess in his mind. The word pushed up at his throat, struggling, until finally it came through in a strangled cry— _“NO!”_ —and Draco thrust the sword in one vicious motion through the heart of the locket.

The Horcrux screamed as it shattered. The apparition came apart, and the light of the bedroom and the solidity of it rushed back into him, and Draco staggered back, forehead damp with sweat, until the backs of his legs met the bed and his weight gave out. The sword clattered to the ground from his grip, and he felt two small, firm hands grasping his shoulders so tightly that it ached, but he kept his eyes tight shut.

He couldn’t make himself look up at Hermione. He knew that she and Potter had heard every word.

There was a long minute of silence, until his breath steadied, until he had wiped away the sweat.

“That’s what it was about,” said Potter’s voice. “With your parents.”

Hermione’s hands released him. Draco finally cracked open his eyes and found her looking from him to Harry, saying, “What? What happened with your parents?”

“Nothing,” Draco said under his breath. He could feel his cheeks colouring.

“It’s not nothing,” Potter said quietly. “And if you’ve got into a row with them, or they’re planning to say something about _you_ two—” He glanced between Draco and Hermione— “to everyone else, that’s going to be my problem, so you’d better tell me.”

“I said it’s nothing,” he said through gritted teeth.

But they weren’t going to let him drop it. “What did they say,” Hermione said in a tone that told him she was bracing for the worst.

Draco looked between them, his heart pumping hard. In the wake of the Horcrux’s assault, he felt beyond naked—he felt flayed. Every inch of his body stinging with exposure. He felt drained and exhausted. All his life, he’d been told that his family affairs weren’t just secret but sacred. The thoughts and feelings of the Malfoys collective were never to be shared. He never would have told Crabbe or Goyle what had happened in the tent.

But then, Crabbe and Goyle had never been privy to any of his thoughts or feelings. Draco felt the world reorient itself yet again as he realised that Harry bloody Potter, simply by being present as his feelings for Hermione had grown, knew more about his interior life than Crabbe or Goyle ever had.

Before Draco knew it, he was letting it burst out of him. He was spilling out his frustrations about his parents’ devotion to the Dark Order, repeating every word they had just told him. “All that,” he snarled, “after the Dementors fed off my father’s body for a _year_ on the Dark Lord’s orders. All that after the Dark Lord threatened to kill me. And I can tell what they want! They want us to collect information from the Order, and I’m supposed to try and sneak it back to the Dark Lord somehow. They think that’ll make everything better. But it won’t, and if they think it will, they’re—they’re—”

But Draco had reached the end of his anger, and at its end, he found hopelessness. He spread one hand over his face, teeth clenched so tightly that pain began to throb in his temples. His parents were never going to change their minds.

And he could never change his back. Draco saw that, too, now, more clearly than ever, because outside of the Horcrux’s surreal universe, none of it seemed seductive or even appealing anymore. The promises of power and superiority seemed as false as fool’s gold, shining the way unnatural light had always danced upon the locket and the diadem.

Draco lowered his hand, staring down at the shattered locket, this fragment of the Dark Lord’s power.

“I’ll tell them,” he said hoarsely. “I’m going to go back down now and tell them everything.”

#

Hermione steeled herself for Draco to go downstairs and confess—but he had hardly risen from the bed when Harry said sharply, “No.”

Hermione and Draco both looked at him.

“Maybe …” Harry said quietly. “Maybe you shouldn’t tell them the truth. Maybe it’d be good for you to have a … a sort of cover story.”

Hermione began to understand what Harry was suggesting, and she felt a wash of dread.

“Potter,” Draco said. Hermione could hear the immense effort it was taking him to keep his voice controlled.

“Think about it,” Harry rushed on. “We don’t have a spy. We never really did, come to that. But what Snape was pretending to do, you can actually do it. Your dad said it himself, didn’t he? _You’ve stayed close to Potter_. You could tell your parents they were right, and then later—you could convince the Death Eaters you’ve done all this to kill me, or turn me in, and that gets you close to the snake.”

“Harry, no,” Hermione said, her heart beating hard. “This is too dangerous. Draco is talented in Occlumency, but he isn’t Snape! You can’t actually expect him to go _back_ to Voldemort?”

Harry let out a frustrated sound. “I know it’s dangerous, and if I were any good at Occlumency I’d do it myself, but we _have_ to get close to Voldemort in the end. What other way is there? We need to get to Nagini, and the snake is always near him!”

Draco’s voice was shaking with anger now. “Potter, I’d have to lie to my parents, have everyone think I’m a spy and a traitor. I’m already dirt to every person in this place. If I go back to the Death Eaters and pretend it was all a lie, they’ll all think they were right.”

“But this is more important than your reputation,” Harry said impatiently. “It’s not about what people think, it’s about getting to the Horcru—”

“Not important, is it?” Draco’s voice rose. “Then maybe _you’d_ like everyone in the world to think what’s being said about you is true, everything the Ministry is coming out with? But then,” he added venomously, “in your case, they have one thing right. You did use a Dark curse on a fellow student, which is more than _I’ve_ ever done to one of our class, by the way, but you don’t hear anyone mentioning that. You don’t even hear me mentioning it.”

Guilt glanced across Harry’s face, and Hermione knew he was remembering the moment he’d cast _Sectumsempra_ on Draco in that bathroom. “I … look, I _am_ sorry about that,” Harry said, his impatience run through with guilt now, “but now’s not the time to … I didn’t know what that curse was supposed to do! I’d seen it written down in Snape’s book and I—”

“That’s not the bloody _point_ , Potter!” Draco said through gritted teeth. “My point is, all your life, you’ve been the Boy Who Lived, Dumbledore’s favourite. So when you cast that curse, no one at Hogwarts thought twice or stopped speaking to you. They assumed you made a mistake. For God’s sake—” Draco let out a hard laugh— “even _I_ assumed it was some stupid mistake! We didn’t all look at that curse and say, _Of course, that’s Potter, that’s the way Potter is_. But I … I’m not …” Draco’s voice grew high and strangled. Hermione felt a cold shock as his gaze strayed to her. Sweat was still gleaming on his brow from the Horcrux’s attack, and his eyes were so wide that he looked nearly manic. “I’m never going to be able to live any of it down! Any of it, anything I’ve done, for the rest of my life! I can’t add more to the list, do you understand?”

A silent moment. Then he sat back on the bed, breathing hard, face turned away from them. Hermione traded a stricken look with Harry.

It was a long moment before Harry mustered a response. “I didn’t think about that,” he said.

Draco didn’t even retort.

“But … still, consider it, would you? You know how important it is.”

Draco jerked his head in a nod.

Harry glanced at Hermione. She nodded, and he slipped out the door.

When the door was shut, Hermione approached Draco. She sat on the edge of the bed beside him and slipped her hand into his. He tensed as if he was considering pulling away.

For a silent moment, they both looked down at the shattered remains of the Horcrux before them, lying beside the Sword of Gryffindor.

“So this is where you’ve been going,” Hermione said quietly. “This is why you let McGonagall say what she said at the lake, and … and this past week … it’s been worse, since the manor.”

After another long, silent moment, Draco drew a shaky breath, then nodded. His hand tightened on hers. “Being there,” he said hoarsely, “it made me think about everything. I keep thinking about the way I used to … the things I said to you. Everything.”

“Draco—”

“I’m sorry.”

Hermione looked over at him, but he couldn’t seem to meet her eyes. His voice was low, shaky—practically frightened. There was a quiver in his pointed chin, and he was holding to her hand so tightly now that she could feel his wrist start to shake with the strain.

“I’m sorry for what I called you,” Draco forced out. “What I did to you. And for standing there doing nothing outside Flourish and Blotts when my father was … and for the Hippogriff, and for—for things I didn’t even remember until I started feeling like this. I want to undo all of it and I can’t. I can’t even convince myself you should forgive me. Or even look at me.”

Hermione squeezed his hand back until his grip relaxed the tiniest bit. She supposed she should have prepared for this. Yet she had no idea how to respond.

Hermione had never really known what it felt like to forgive someone. She wasn’t a person to let things go—the opposite. She tightened her fists until she could use them to deal blows of retribution. Always it had been this way.

And when she thought about the things Draco had said and done, she did feel repulsion. But it was no longer the galvanising repulsion of righteous anger. It was a kind of repulsion based in dissonance, like two magnets of the same pole held close together. That was the way she could feel the man diverging forcibly from the boy.

“If I still felt that I needed to forgive you,” Hermione said softly, “I’m not sure that I’d be able to. But it’s been a long time since I looked at you and saw someone to forgive.” She touched his jaw, his neck, his shoulder. “I-I see someone else now.”

Draco did look at her then, and Hermione saw his fear and exhaustion and splintered pride—but she also saw desire, and painful hope, and abject gratitude. It was the look of someone setting down a burden that weighed as much as a past life. It was the look of someone who, in confessing his shame, had finally taken the first, most painful step away from it.

She smiled and said, “I see you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes i go back through stuff i’ve written and i’m like, oh yeah, it’s really really obvious that i was raised catholic huh
> 
> on a more serious note, thank you to everyone who either commented or reached out with concern for my family bc of my previous chapter note. my grandfather wound up passing away last summer after a short, sudden illness (non-covid), and it was harder than usual to live in the US when all my family live abroad.
> 
> but he had a long and extremely awesome life. he was an architect who did a lot of tai chi and also he once killed an 8-foot-long king cobra with a pair of broomsticks when it tried to attack my sister.
> 
> RIP to the coolest.
> 
> [tumbl away with me :)](https://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	22. The Resistance Rising

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I have changed the fic’s rating to M! (Frankly, as someone who writes mostly YA, I’d still be okay with teenagers reading this, but let’s be safe.)
> 
> This chapter was written with thanks to Pidanka :)

“Enlighten me, then, Potter,” Draco said, closing the door of the reading room. “How do you think this would work, exactly?”

Potter’s head rose slowly. “What?”

“Don’t get excited. I’m not saying I’ll do it. I’m saying I want to know _how_ , in the name of Merlin’s droopy wandtip—” Though Draco already heard the tell-tale hum of _Muffliato,_ he lowered his voice to finish— “you think I could possibly get away with playing both sides.”

“Fair question.” Potter closed the biography on Helga Hufflepuff that he’d been reading all day, and Draco sat down in the armchair opposite. They were alone in a sun-drenched mid-afternoon. Hermione was in the kitchen with Luna and Ginny, but Draco had spoken about all this with her the previous night, anyway.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Potter went on, “and Hermione’s right. You’re good at Occlumency for our age, but—”

“I’m not Snape,” Draco finished.

Potter nodded. “So, our plan can’t hinge on having you physically in a room with a Legilimens like Voldemort, Bellatrix, or Snape. They could force the truth out of you, and it’d be too dangerous, anyway.” Potter tugged at a tuft of his messy hair. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, as though he’d slept poorly.

Draco arched one brow. “Potter. Could you possibly be concerned for my safety?”

He expected Potter to give one of those smart retorts he sometimes turned back, but the black-haired boy looked back at Draco with a seriousness that gave Draco unexpected discomfort.

“Yeah,” Potter said. “I’m not asking anyone in the Order to take on a suicide mission. Although you already gave it a good enough go at the Ministry and the Manor.”

Draco shifted in his chair. “God, you’re right,” he said, trying for a light tone. “Maybe that martyr complex of yours is contagious, Potter. Maybe I fancy going out in a blaze of glory for the cause now.”

After a long moment, Potter’s expression eased, and he let out a snort. “I suppose you’d want us to call it Draco Malfoy Day and celebrate it every year?”

“Oh, at a minimum,” Draco said, leaning back in the armchair. “Fireworks, banners … make it an international occasion, Potter.”

Potter shook his head with a somewhat reluctant smile.

“Anyway,” Draco said, “if we’re avoiding the Dark Lord, my aunt, and Snape, how do we get to the snake?” He shook his head. “Besides, it’s like I told my parents. There’s no way the Death Eaters will want to take us back after we’ve faked our deaths.”

“They will if you hand me over to them.”

Draco just looked at Potter, feeling a mixture of resignation and amusement. Trust him to come out with this mere seconds after Draco had explicitly said the phrase “martyr complex.”

“All right,” Draco said, dripping irony. “Shall we go out to the street and I’ll press my Mark? We can have them here right away.”

Potter sat forward on the edge of the sofa, looking intent. “Don’t be an idiot. I mean I’ll be the lure for a Death Eater ambush that you’d set up from a distance. Then the Order would be waiting to ambush the ambush.”

Draco considered it. Fragments of a plan began to eddy in his mind. “If we want to get at the snake,” he said slowly, “the Dark Lord will have to go to the ambush site himself. It’d need to happen somewhere that the Death Eaters can’t grab you and Disapparate off to him.”

Potter nodded. “We’ll need to control everything about it. And we should wait to make contact until after we find and destroy the Cup. Then this will be our final attack. We lure Voldemort and the snake out, making him think he’s caught me unprepared. We kill the snake. Then—” Potter was sitting ramrod straight now. “Then I face him.”

Draco felt another hard twinge of discomfort, looking at the skinny, bespectacled wizard opposite him, with his scarred forehead and his wand gripped tight in both hands. Yes, Potter had escaped Voldemort time after time, but a narrow escape wasn’t the same as standing his ground and duelling to the death.

Draco had lived with Potter for half a year now. It had been six months of researching and planning, eating Potter’s surprisingly competent cooking, quietly appreciating that he kept his nose out of Draco and Hermione’s business. They’d fought together, laughed together over Ernie Macmillan and Sybill Trelawney—chatted in idle moments of clean-up about Quidditch and N.E.W.T.s and which jobs at the Ministry sounded best or most boring.

And Draco hadn’t just grown accustomed to Potter’s hero complex. With the Wireless and the _Prophet_ and the Dark Lord’s forces conspiring to draw him into the open by any means, Draco now understood _why_ Potter felt that the world and all its casualties were laden upon his scrawny shoulders.

After all this, was Draco really supposed to stand there and watch Potter die at the Dark Lord’s wandtip? Even if it was his supposed destiny?

Draco averted his eyes. “Yeah, well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves with the ambush. The first step is me making contact with the Death Eaters, isn’t it? Telling them I’m alive and inside Headquarters, and convincing them I’m still loyal?”

Potter nodded, his expression clearing. “You can pretend you’ve always wanted to do me in, like I said.”

Draco sighed. “I’m not going to act like I’ve been trying to kill you all along when we’ve been in this place for months. That’d make me the world’s most incompetent assassin.”

“I thought you already were the world’s most incompetent assassin.”

“Hilarious.”

Potter chortled, then grew serious again. “So, what’s your cover story, then?”

Draco shrugged. “My parents assumed I stayed with the Order out of self-preservation. I’ll use that as a base, then say that once my parents arrived, I …” He tasted something sour. “Remembered my passion for the Dark Lord’s cause, or whatever it is.”

“We need a reason you haven’t just pressed your Dark Mark, then.”

“Hermione’s found a way to undo the enchantment. We can say she forced me to get rid of it last September, so I couldn’t have summoned anyone, could I?” He paused. “She should do my father’s, as well, to keep the story consistent.”

Potter nodded, considering. “It’ll still be a lot of work to get them to trust you, though. We’ll have to build it up over a while, feed them bits of plans that wind up coming true, so they know your information is good.” He hesitated. “And I think the first impression will be the most important thing. It’ll need to be in person, so they know it’s really you and not one of us making up a story.”

“Yeah,” Draco said slowly. “We need to contact someone who’ll report to the other Death Eaters the way we want them to.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too.” Potter grimaced. “Whoever it is will have to swallow a lot of lies pretty quickly.”

“That’s not a problem,” Draco said, mulling the list of names in his mind. “The Dark Lord recruits based on loyalty, not on sheer deductive brilliance.”

“Who’s the best option, then?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it,” Draco said stiffly, tugging at a loose thread in the armchair. “I can’t be sure. … I wasn’t exactly keen on those people as houseguests. Dolohov was the one I knew best, and he’s dead now.”

“But your parents have known them all for decades.”

“Yeah.”

Potter hesitated, looking cautious. “Look, I know you don’t want to lie to your mum and dad, but their information could be really useful. Besides the Death Eaters, maybe they even know something about the cup or the snake that we don’t.” He nudged his glasses up with a knuckle. “But you’ll have to be on good terms to ask about that sort of thing.”

Draco tugged at the chair’s loose thread more violently. “Maybe … maybe we could contact the Death Eaters, pass the information, plan the ambush—do it all without my parents knowing.”

Potter’s silence seemed to grow louder.

Draco avoided looking at him. “I know you don’t like my parents, Potter. And I don’t expect you to,” he added stiffly, “but they’re still my parents. They’ll never join the Order, but I think I could convince them that hiding at headquarters is the safest thing for the family. That’s what I want them to do. Just sit here until it’s all done, one way or the other. … As for the information—” Draco picked at the armchair ever more ferociously. “I’ll lie to them halfway, all right? I’ll tell them I’m blending in with the Order but not really loyal, so I can ask questions, get your details. But I don’t want to drag them into some plan of ours when they don’t know what’s actually happening.”

“All right,” Potter said. “We’ll do it ourselves. They won’t be part of it.”

Draco looked up from the chair’s increasingly bedraggled upholstery. He was surprised to find no hint of annoyance in Potter’s face. He’d assumed that Potter would want his parents in the plan for corroboration—but there was only understanding in Potter’s expression.

Then Draco remembered with a jolt where they were sitting: inside the house where Potter’s own parents had been murdered. Of course he, of all people, would understand the desire to keep his family as far from harm as possible.

“But,” Potter said, looking suddenly awkward, “I can think of one problem with all that.”

“What?”

“If you’re only staying with the Order out of self-preservation, there’s no reason you’d stay … well, here. With Hermione.” Potter cleared his throat. “You’d need to sleep in their tent.”

Draco had known this was inevitable, but his heart still sank. He thought of the way Hermione looked when she stirred in the morning, her hair chaotic, her warm brown eyes when she gave him a sleepy smile.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I know.”

They sat there in uncomfortable silence for a moment before Potter said, rubbing the back of his neck, “Listen, I really am sorry about that curse.”

Draco had not expected Potter to raise the issue again. He raised his brows. “Snape did the counter-curse in about five seconds, Potter. Three days with Pomfrey and I was fine. Yeah, it would have been nice if the school had given a damn about me nearly dying, but … it’s fine.”

“It isn’t fine,” said Potter, agitated. “You _did_ nearly die, and it would’ve been my Dark magic that did it. On _Snape_ ’s suggestions,” he added through gritted teeth.

“Oh, is that why you care?” Draco said, amused. “Because it was Dark magic? You think I care that you used a Dark curse instead of _Diffindo_ or something?”

“I do,” Potter said with a hint of indignation.

“The hills you Gryffindors choose to die on.” Draco yawned, standing. “I’ll get Hermione so we can get back to that bloody cup, shall I?”

“Can’t wait,” Potter groaned, stretching so that his back cracked.

When Draco was at the door, Potter added, “Draco.”

Draco glanced back.

“Thanks,” Potter said.

Draco considered. “I’d say ‘anytime’, but let’s call this a one-off, shall we?”

Potter grinned, and Draco smiled back as he slipped out into the hall.

#

The first weeks of January passed in a rush of Order activity. Hermione, Harry, and Draco were still trying to brainstorm locations for Hufflepuff’s cup, but Headquarters was now so busy that they often found themselves distracted by the others’ goals.

Firstly and most excitingly, supplies had begun to trickle in from anonymous donors. Apparently, despite Aberforth’s gruffness, he was managing to contact sympathisers in Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and beyond—generous sympathisers. Every day, parcels of gold or food appeared at their drop location several miles away. Occasionally they also found owls given over to the custody of the Order, and one memorable morning Hermione found a dozen live chickens inside a handmade coop, which she and Harry had to dismantle before Apparating it back to Headquarters. Soon they had so much money that Fred and George began to manage an Order Treasury in the attic alongside their Wizarding Wireless project.

The twins’ radio station was on track to begin broadcasting soon; as a retort to the _Prophet_ , they had named it _The Daily Potter_. Meanwhile, Ginny and Luna were mapping out flyover distribution routes and drafting leaflets. But as they still had neither broomsticks nor the supplies to produce pamphlets on a mass scale, Ginny and Luna spent half their days collecting materials for Mr. Ollivander, who—knowing Muggle-borns’ wands had been confiscated—had agreed to craft new ones in his time at Headquarters.

Harry, Hermione, and Draco had slipped into Ollivander’s room one afternoon, when the wandmaker had recovered somewhat, to ask about the Elder Wand. Even after all the evidence, Hermione had half-expected Ollivander to laugh that the wand was a children’s story, to confirm what she’d always believed about wandcraft. It felt surreal to stand at his bedside and hear him speak, instead, about the Elder Wand’s bloody path through Wizarding history, as if this were something anyone would know if they simply flipped open _A History of Magic_.

They hoped to search for the Elder Wand at the end of January. In preparation, Hermione had found a compass at an old Muggle garage sale, which was steeping inside the potion mentioned in Celine Shih’s instructions, a Magical Sensitivity Draught. Hermione had never tried this potion before, and she found it both interesting and challenging.

At first she’d lamented the potion’s reek of rotten eggs, which had filled the upstairs cupboard where they were brewing the potion. But a week into the stewing process, Draco had taken a dropper of lime juice from her potion kit and added three drops to the cauldron.

“Draco! What are you _doing_?” she’d squeaked, snatching the dropper from his hand, then going back to the instructions, her hair full of foul-smelling moisture. “It doesn’t say anything about lime juice!”

“Granger,” Draco had said slowly, looking incredulous, “don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?” she said somewhat snappishly, still poring over the text.

“Lime juice acts as a nonreactive scent neutraliser in any potion with porcupine quills.”

At once, Hermione remembered the chapter in _Advanced Potion Making_ that had mentioned that property of lime juice. She’d read the _Optional Variants_ chapter less intensively than the rest. After all, if it wasn’t in the instructions, was it really necessary?

Hermione snapped the book shut and cleared her throat. “Yes. Right. Well. Don’t do it again, please; you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Draco’s incredulity turned into amusement. “I’ll do it twice a day, if it means I get to see that look on your face again.”

“What look?”

“The one that said I remembered something from school that you didn’t.”

“I do remember it,” she huffed. “The second you said it, I remembered it was in chapter sixteen.”

“Of course,” Draco said, flicking his wand to banish the foul scent from the cupboard, their clothes, and their hair. The only odour left was the circulating steam from the potion, which now smelled pleasantly like cleaning solution. “You remembered it after I’d already done it. That would have been really useful on your N.E.W.T.s.”

Hermione drew herself up, not knowing whether she wanted to pick an argument, laugh, or possibly kiss him. Draco was looking down into the potion now, the peach-coloured light of the liquid glancing off the tip of his nose. She wasn’t _surprised,_ exactly—to have signed up for N.E.W.T.-level potions, he must have scored an ‘Outstanding’ on his O.W.L.—but there was something undeniably attractive about the fact that he’d known something she didn’t. Maybe it was just the novelty.

It was certainly a relief to see him making jokes again. The change in Draco’s mood since he had apologised had been slow but visible. Gone was the hunch in his shoulders, gone the pain undergirding his expression when their eyes met. He was regaining his old poise, and while he was still closed off to the others, there was even a kind of ease in that, now. It was like the innate confidence he’d used to wear at Hogwarts, except that this confidence did not manifest in sneering. Every day, he seemed to have less to prove.

The previous afternoon, Hermione had even spied him speaking to Hagrid in the garden, near where they had tethered Buckbeak, who had joined them under Disillusionment. Draco had turned to the Hippogriff, said something, and lowered his torso in a deliberate bow. After a long moment, Buckbeak had bowed back, while Hagrid looked on with obvious surprise.

Draco looked up and met her eye over the cauldron. “Yes?” he said. She felt her face grow hotter.

Holding his gaze through the swirls of steam, Hermione realised how long it had been since they’d had a moment alone together. She was beginning to envy Harry and Ginny, who had, inevitably, been unable to stay apart. They were now publicly, happily together. Harry could rest his hand upon Ginny’s absentmindedly while planning; Ginny could kiss Harry on the cheek before leaving the room.

But Hermione couldn’t acknowledge any connection with Draco. He spent meals with Lucius and Narcissa, then returned to their tent in the evenings. With Hermione’s organisational duties, and not wanting to make Harry uncomfortable during planning sessions, they’d had to settle for glances shot across rooms, for brushes in darkened hallways.

“ _Colloportus,”_ Hermione said, aiming her wand at the cupboard door. The spell had hardly left her lips when Draco was tugging her into him, kissing her hungrily, his hands tangling in her hair. They did not emerge from the cupboard for half an hour.

She missed him more than usual that night while she prepared for bed. She imagined him in the tent in the garden’s back corner and wondered if he was thinking of her, too, or if he was too distracted with the front he had to put up for his parents.

Although Draco didn’t seem pleased about lying to his parents, Hermione also suspected that part of him was relieved not to have to tell them the whole truth. He still spoke about Lucius and Narcissa with a conflicted expression.

“What have you told them you’re _doing_ all day, exactly?” Hermione asked one morning, when they and Harry were up in the nursery, lounging in the sunbeams with books spread around them.

“Yeah,” Harry said, “why do they think you’d spend so much time in Headquarters, if you’re not part of the Order?”

Draco shrugged. “I said it was part of the conditions of our staying here. I said you all expect me to be available to answer questions about Death Eaters, and of course I don’t tell you anything important, but it’s necessary to keep up appearances, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Do you think they’re coming around?” Hermione asked. “To the idea of staying hidden here, I mean.”

“Not really,” Draco said, flipping a page back and forth in agitation. “They keep trying to get me to commit to sabotaging the Order. They’re being more and more obvious about it, too, which is …” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. They were fine with the idea of going abroad last summer.”

But there was no time to dwell on his parents’ behaviour. With the help of Dobby, Winky, and several secretly freed Hogwarts house-elves, the Order conducted their first real bit of sabotage: they destroyed the _Magic is Might_ statue in the Ministry of Magic, replacing it with a version of the Fountain of Magical Brethren whose subjects were prepared for war. Bill and Fleur were receiving letters day and night from goblin groups, detailing how goblins were being profiled and mistreated, probing their possible interest in Order plans. Fleur, too, was hearing whisperings of Death Eater influence in France and Germany, with Viktor Krum sending a hastily scrawled message about the troubled climate in Bulgaria. Charlie Weasley—to Hagrid’s delight—had written back with a mention of dragonet-riders.

But the first major breakthrough came halfway through the month, when Fred slipped into the reading room and announced to Harry, Hermione, and Draco, “As newsmen, we have some news we think will interest you lot.”

“Go on, then,” Harry said.

George slipped in after Fred. “This morning, we had our first-ever broadcast of _The Daily Potter.”_

Harry mumbled something inaudible.

“And what’s more,” George went on, “we heard something back.”

Harry’s eyes widened, and Hermione’s heart leapt. “What?” Draco said.

“How?” said Harry.

“When we were designing the station with Lee in seventh year,” Fred said, “we had all sorts of features in mind.”

“No one else would know how to access the response spell—” George said.

“Except for Lee,” Fred finished. “And he heard the broadcast. Said he’s been waiting for us to set this up ever since we disappeared after Christmas.”

“And,” George said, now grinning so widely that pockets of freckles disappeared into his dimples, “he had company. One Remus Lupin and one Kingsley Shacklebolt were just about to leave his parents’ place, see?”

“They were on the list of temporary safehouses,” Fred added.

“Tonks mentioned it at the Manor,” Hermione breathed, her heart racing. “Oh, my goodness. Does this mean—”

“We’ll be able to get them here?” Harry said, voice rising.

“I’ll do you one better, mate.” Fred tugged the door of the reading room wide.

Hermione let out a small scream and leapt to her feet. In the hallway were Lee Jordan, his locked hair bound back, Kingsley Shacklebolt, so tall his bald head reached up into the shadowed heights of the hall, and Remus Lupin, his robes exceptionally shabby, his kind face spread in a smile.

That night, they utilised half the tents’ kitchens to cook a welcome feast for the Order’s newest arrivals. Draco agreed to eat with his parents in their tent that evening, where—upon being informed of the arrival of a werewolf—Lucius and Narcissa seemed perfectly happy to stay.

“Potter’s filled us in on the basics of your plans,” Kingsley said in his deep, calm voice, “and they sound like a good start.”

“We won’t lie,” Lee said with a grimace, “things are bad out there. We were damn lucky we heard that broadcast when we did—the Snatchers have gone a step farther. They’re raiding houses, now. Random ones.”

“The focus on civilians is very troubling,” said Lupin, settling back onto the sofa with an exhausted noise. “These are witches and wizards with no previous connection to the Order … the raids are based on suspicion and association, which encourages people to isolate themselves. The civilian safehouses simply won’t be safe anymore, and the Death Eaters’ numbers have expanded at an alarming rate over the past two months.”

Kingsley nodded. “There have been meetings of thousands in London.”

“ _Thousands?_ ” Harry repeated, horrified. “Thousands of Death Eaters?”

Lupin and Kingsley traded a meaningful look. “Not exactly,” Lupin said. “Very few of those people would call themselves Death Eaters. Most would never hunt Muggles or kill for Lord Voldemort, and these meetings never take place under Voldemort’s name. They are Ministry-sanctioned, and they use the same language that the Christmas Gala did: ‘ _in defence of magical unity’_ , or ‘ _solidarity among wizardkind’_ … you see the pattern. But the support they’ve drawn is a sign of the Ministry’s influence, and especially the _Prophet_ ’s.”

“Thousands of people believed that rubbish Skeeter wrote?” said Ginny, sounding appalled. “I thought people were smarter than that.”

Lupin managed a smile. “Tens of thousands nationwide,” he reminded Ginny. “Thousands in London alone.”

A cold hush fell over the front room. Hermione’s fists were balled. Headquarters had been so busy over the past weeks, she had really felt as if they were on the way to combating Voldemort’s efforts on the large scale. Now the little room with its dozen-odd people felt minuscule.

“I think,” said Professor McGonagall tartly, “that you might be interested in the work I’ve been doing since my arrival. Do you agree, Mr. Potter?”

“Yes,” Harry said at once. “Kingsley, Remus—it’d be a huge help if you join Professor McGonagall from now on. Lee, you’re with Fred and George, and make sure Kingsley, Remus, and Minerva get as much as they need from the Treasury. That’s top priority now.”

Hermione made a note of this. Professor McGonagall had scoped out several sites for safehouses, mostly abandoned buildings in the wild that might be simple renovation projects with the help of magic.

“What about our mum and dad?” said Ginny from Harry’s other side. “Has there been any word on everyone in Azkaban?”

“Hang on a second,” Fred said slowly, looking at Kingsley. “You were a top Auror, Kingsley. Does that mean you’ve been to Azkaban?”

Kingsley looked at Fred with resignation, as though he’d known this question would come. “It does,” he said.

“So you know how to get there,” said George with rising excitement.

Most of the front room were sitting up straighter now. “Would a rescue be possible?” said Bill.

“No,” Kingsley said heavily. “You all, the Dementors have been breeding for years now. They know not to attack Ministry members—and Death Eaters, now—but for everyone else, the place will be so thick with them that you wouldn’t be able to get to the entrance.” He glanced around the front room. “Even the lot of us casting fully corporeal Patronuses wouldn’t be enough.”

“Believe me,” Lupin said, voice quiet and defeated. “If there were a way to get to Tonks … but I visited Sirius’s cell once, after the First War. The place is unimaginable. We would need a force of hundreds to stand a chance.”

The tiny bubble of hope that had been swelling in Hermione’s chest popped. She looked down at her papers and tried to focus on the plans, rather than on the thought of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley lying in cells, their minds invaded every day by Death Eaters.

“All right,” Harry said, though she heard the bitter disappointment in his voice. “But … what are these interrogation reports, Kingsley?”

Kingsley lifted his broad shoulders. “It’s nothing unexpected. The Ministry want to keep the outrage about Malfoy Manor building. All month, the _Prophet_ ’s been printing dozens of interviews with burn victims and bereaved families, who all blame Miss Granger for the attack.”

“Yes, we’ve seen them,” said Luna distantly. “The journalism is all quite terrible.”

“And,” Lupin added, “there were multiple reports about you two leaving Hogwarts.” He nodded to Hagrid and McGonagall. “Terrible journalism it might be, Luna, but their motive is clear. They’re trying to build up the idea that enemies are everywhere, and we’re in desperate need of unification by a strong leader.”

“Wow,” said Harry with hard irony, “I wonder where they’re going to suggest we find this leader, eventually?”

Lupin gave a nod. “Exactly. The _Prophet_ are smoothing Voldemort’s image every day. They mention his Special Award for Services to the School at Hogwarts, remind readers of his unparalleled number of O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s … they’ve all but made him out to be an overzealous magical theoretician.” He let out a humourless laugh. “But of course, they never mention the murders in the First War. Only more and more details about this new theory that Harry was prophesied to bring the downfall of the Wizarding World.”

Kingsley’s brow was furrowed now. “I’ll admit, though … it’s hard to see where Voldemort is in all this. Hard to see what’s he doing right now that could be more important than the takeover.”

Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance, but before they could speak, Bill broke in.

“What about Ron?” he asked with hard concern. “Has anyone seen our brother? Or heard anything about him?”

“I know one thing,” Lee said with an apologetic note in his voice. “There were Snatchers hiding out right near the Burrow. The night of the fight at Malfoy Manor, I tried to go there—thought you three might not have heard about it, see? But I ran into eight or nine Snatchers, staked out in Ottery St. Catchpole. They were already on their way there. I only barely managed to Disapparate in time.”

“And—and Hogwarts? What’s going on there?” Harry asked, and Hermione knew he was hunting for any sign that Ron might have surfaced at school.

“My little sister’s in her fifth year,” Lee said, “and last I heard from her, it’s bloody mayhem. Especially in Slytherin. Those Slytherin girls are in shock about Pansy Parkinson … Parkinson landing in Azkaban for helping the Order of the Phoenix?” Lee let out a disbelieving laugh. “I wouldn’t’ve believed it myself. So, half their house is asking questions about what happened at the gala. That idiot Crabbe got caught shooting his mouth off about it, too—saying the fire was all worth it if it makes people see what the Order’s really like. Apparently he and Goyle got into a fistfight in the middle of the Great Hall. Goyle’s dad is still in St. Mungo’s, see, and Goyle was yelling that Crabbe set the curse off himself.”

“Well, he did,” Harry said darkly.

“Not surprising.” Lee shook his head. “But other kids were there with their families, and they swear they heard Hermione’s voice cast it.”

Hermione’s stomach dropped. “What?” she said, her voice high and thin. “Why would they say that?”

Lupin sighed. “Remember, Hermione: a street full of eyewitnesses swore they saw Sirius Black cast a curse that killed thirteen people. A curse that came from a wand halfway across the street.” Lupin turned his eyes to the flickering fire, a strained smile touching his mouth. “You don’t need magic to change people’s memories. You only need suggestion.”

#

“We have news,” Narcissa said in a whisper, while Lucius closed and locked the office door. Draco was asleep in his bedroom, which was at the opposite end of the tent’s hall, but Narcissa believed they could not take too many precautions.

Her sister’s face gazed out of the mirror. Behind her was the parlour of the Lestrange House, all green velvet upholstery and tall windows. A fine house, it was still not as luxurious a place as Malfoy Manor had been. Narcissa had always taken secret pride in that, childish though it felt. Bellatrix had married into the oldest and strictest of magical bloodlines. But in terms of social influence and sheer financial power, Narcissa’s marriage had always been the better of the two.

Sometimes Narcissa wondered what it must have been like for Andromeda to leave the culture where these things were all-important. Marrying a Mudblood—one who could not even claim any great wealth—had it been a case of self-loathing? Why else would Andromeda have debased herself in such a way?

Narcissa had suffered more and more frequent thoughts of her fallen sister. Irritated with herself, she shook the thoughts and said, “The ex-Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt and the werewolf Remus Lupin have found the headquarters of the Order.”

Bella’s mouth contorted. “We nearly had Shacklebolt three weeks ago,” she murmured. “A missed opportunity … but what of Lupin’s mate?” Her lip curled, and Narcissa knew Bella was reviling the fact that Nymphadora Tonks shared their blood. The vicious gleam in Bella’s eyes told her all too clearly what her sister’s intentions were for their niece. “Have they been separated?”

“We cannot be certain,” whispered Lucius, joining Narcissa at the desk. “Perhaps the Mudblood’s brat plans to arrive at a later date. We will see if Draco can tease the information out of the Order over the next several days.”

“And where is dear Draco?” said Bellatrix, her voice low and poisonous. “I see you still have not trusted him enough to tell him we are in contact.”

“We cannot risk it,” Lucius said. “We suspect a lingering Confundus, Bella. How else could they have influenced our son to join them at the Manor?” He hesitated, and Narcissa knew that the disturbed look that tugged at Lucius’s features was not an act. “Draco seems … unlike himself.”

“While you worry about the boy, Lucius,” Bella said coldly, “my patience thins. What have you given me so far? A list of people within the headquarters that we had guessed long ago. No way to attack any of this filth, no real detail on their plans … no way to Potter. You promised me we would have Potter.”

“We will, Bella,” Narcissa whispered. “We already have the beginnings of a plan. The Order relies on Draco, you see … they force him to give them details on the Death Eaters. Once Draco returns to our confidence, this will be the perfect way to draw Potter into the open. Draco will feed them some story, and Potter will follow a trail directly into your hands.”

Bellatrix’s heavy-lidded eyes moved over Narcissa’s expression. After a moment her haughtiness eased. “Still, Cissy,” she said, “you must be more aggressive in finding information. I have done my part, have I not? I have kept this secret, even from the Dark Lord himself. … I have Obliviated any memory of you and Draco from the Weasley mother and father. I have given you time. You _must_ give me intelligence upon which we can act. Then we will lay a trail of successes, and Potter will be our crowning achievement.”

“Yes,” Narcissa murmured. She hoped that Bella did not hear the weariness in her voice. Her sister would take it as disloyalty rather than exhaustion. Narcissa did not understand the drive to fight. Better to accept the circumstances and slip away quietly when it was possible … to become background, as she always had, caught between two more strong-willed sisters.

Andromeda, almost certainly, would seek to help the Order. Maybe Andromeda knew that her son-in-law had arrived here. Maybe not just Nymphadora but Andromeda would find their way here.

Narcissa felt a strange flutter in her heart. She tried to imagine standing across from Andromeda after these decades, on territory that was her sister’s. She knew her sister had consorted with the likes of the Order for so long that she might be virtually unrecognisable … _but she is blood,_ said a tiny voice in the back of her mind.

Narcissa remembered herself and Bellatrix standing at Andromeda’s shoulders as Andromeda played a tune on the piano, admiring their sister’s quick fingers. They had been only girls, then. Three girls who believed in nothing more than their excitement for Hogwarts and who could best win their parents’ favour.

In the mirror, Bella glanced up, seeming to have heard something. “I must go,” she said quickly. Then the image in the mirror faded, leaving Narcissa and Lucius looking into their own faces once more.

Narcissa returned the mirror into the desk’s lowest drawer, hiding it inside one of the boxes of joke merchandise that the Weasley twins had made. Although the rest of the tent had been scoured of the products, likely in anticipation of the Malfoys’ arrival, the Order seemed to have forgotten this drawer, and it was the best hiding place they would find for the mirror.

Narcissa looked up at her husband. “What will we do?” she said quietly. “Draco seems determined to stay under the Order’s wing until the war ends. But we cannot lie to Bella very much longer.”

Lucius paced the bedroom. Narcissa could see her husband’s quick mind placing pieces against each other, seeing the way they fit and came apart. “There must be a reason,” he said, voice tight with frustration. “Draco would not act this way out of fear alone. He must believe …”

Lucius stopped, then turned back to Narcissa. “He must believe that the Order will win the fight,” he breathed. “That must be it. He refuses to consider our unique position because the Order have convinced him that they have a winning position.”

Narcissa leaned her elbow on the desk, massaging her temple. “But how are we to convince him otherwise?”

“Your sister is right,” Lucius said. His voice was sharper, now. “We have been too passive, too cautious—we have focused too closely on coaxing Draco. The way to turn him back onto the right path is to remind him how inevitable the Dark Lord’s victory is. We must find intelligence that allows the Death Eaters to deliver a crucial blow.” He began to pace again, more quickly. “Draco will be shaken. He will see that he need not sink with this ship. He will come back to us then. We need a way to listen in on the Order’s plans.”

Narcissa drew a sharp breath. Then she yanked open the drawer that she had just closed. “Here,” she whispered. Hadn’t she seen, and considered as a hiding place for the mirror, a box that could be perfect for just this purpose—a box full of flesh-coloured strings labelled _Extendable Ears?_

#

Hermione could hardly believe that it was only days to the end of January. The month had sped by in such a whirl that it came as quite a shock when she looked at her calendar and discovered that the Magical Sensitivity Draught had reached maturation.

That afternoon, they tested the compass in a field far from the magical buzz of headquarters. When Hermione activated it with the spell she’d been practicing, the compass pointed her steadfastly toward Draco’s and Harry’s wands.

At last, they were ready to return to Little Whinging and search for the Elder Wand.

They were certain Privet Drive would be watched, in case of Harry’s return, so they would need to Apparate at a distance and make a circuitous course on brooms toward the address. But they had only just started poring over a map when their planning was interrupted.

Ginny burst into Hermione’s bedroom, her face terrified.

“What?” Harry said, leaping to his feet. “What’s happened?”

Ginny shook her head and waved a frantic hand. They all hurried downstairs after her into the front room, where the Order were huddled around the coffee table. The whole room was reddened with the light of sunset, and as they parted, Hermione felt the breath leave her body.

Aberforth Dumbledore was lying atop the table, motionless. His outer robes had been removed, and it was immediately apparent why: his left side and arm were soaked in blood that was dripping onto the carpet.

At first she was certain he was dead. Then she realised Lupin and Fleur were crouched over the wound, both their wands moving in tandem. They would not be doing so if he had died. Harry tried to stride forward, but Kingsley held out his hand and said, “He needs space, Potter.”

“What happened?” Hermione whispered.

“Couldn’ say much before he passed out,” said Hagrid gruffly, his beetle-black eyes full of concern.

“We expect,” said McGonagall, her face drawn and pale, “that one of his contacts gave him away. We know he was attacked by Death Eaters when he was visiting Augusta Longbottom … she was trying to extend the network.”

“Neville’s grandmother?” Harry said sharply. “Is she all right?”

“He said she’s in custody,” said Luna, her voice thin and whispery. “Neville will be so upset.”

“Augusta will be quite all right,” said McGonagall firmly. “That witch is made of sterner stuff than most.”

Soon Aberforth was removed to a Transfigured cot in McGonagall’s tent. Fleur and Lupin stayed with him, continuing to work on the counter-curses necessary, and Harry insisted on standing by him, too. Hermione could only imagine what Harry would feel if the only remaining member of the Dumbledore family died on his orders.

She and Draco returned to her bedroom to stash their planning materials out of sight. Hermione wanted to break the silence, but every time she thought about speaking, she remembered the blood dripping onto the carpet, and her throat tightened to the point of pain. Sunset was melting into dusk outside and the light was fading from every surface, leaching the colour out of the world.

Hermione jumped as Draco’s fingers touched her shoulder. She had been standing, facing the dresser, breathing hard, for a long while.

“If he got here right after the curse,” Draco said quietly, “and they started on it right away, there’s a decent chance he’ll live.”

“Yes,” Hermione said faintly. “Yes, I-I hope so.”

She closed her eyes as Draco swept her hair over one shoulder. His touch could not reassure her. The woollen cuff of his jumper itched at her skin. Hermione’s eyes closed. “But I can’t stop thinking,” she whispered, “that could be any of us, whenever we leave Headquarters. And what if, the next time I go down the steps, it’s Ginny or Luna, or Fred or George, or … or Harry, or …”

She couldn’t say it. The pause felt deafening, and she could feel her palms heating.

“This is what I was talking about before Diagon Alley,” Draco said quietly. “Remember? Everything has the same risk.”

She turned to face Draco and saw her own fear reflected in his eyes. She’d seen it the night of the Christmas Gala, too. She’d suspected then that he had been tempted to stay at the Potter Cottage—but she had been so determined to retrieve the Horcrux, she had not really stopped to imagine what it would be like to see Draco struck down in battle. Draco, dead, drenched in blood, the mercurial features going still, the grey eyes glazed.

Now she remembered his body going limp from shock in the Ministry of Magic. Her terror when she thought he had died. That afternoon felt like a lifetime ago.

Hermione’s breaths quickened, and hot tears pricked her eyes, and she felt a wrenching sensation like some part had worked in her chest to the point of breakage. She wanted the war to be over. She was so tired of fear and despair. She just wanted to walk down a street with Draco, hand in hand, to somewhere like a supermarket or a bookshop. She wanted them to go back to Hogwarts together, where they could kiss goodbye outside the door to their classes, where they could compare schedules or do homework in a cosy corner of the library. She wanted to bring him to the restaurants she and her parents loved in her little hometown—she wanted to see all the places he treasured, too.

Their secrecy had never felt so cloistering. She didn’t want to die with her lips sealed.

“It’s not fair,” she whispered. “It’s not fair that we have to take risks like this. I—” She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. “I don’t want to risk you.”

Draco reached up and touched her face, delicately, apprehensively, as if she were made of snow and he feared he might melt her. “I know,” he said, each word unsteady. “I can’t lose you.”

Hermione moved forward in a rush. Her mouth met Draco’s in a clumsy slip-slide of teeth and lip. He pressed closer and stabilised them both, his touch equally urgent. His hands were tight on her shoulders, her forearms, her back, then slipping beneath the fabric of her jumper to tug it over her head. When she did the same to him, his shirt stuck to the wool and was thrown aside, too.

Half-naked in the dusk he looked like a ghost, silvery and translucent, as if he were already halfway gone. Hermione’s heart seemed to contract, and she pushed him onto the bed so that the old springs whined. Draco caught her by the wrist and pulled her down, too, both shifting gracelessly back onto the mattress so their heads were somewhere near the pillows. Then their lips met again, seeking something, trying to express something, no motion eloquent enough. But Hermione heard what he was saying in every touch. Time was short. Compressed in on itself. Even now their lives might be flames upon their last nubs of wax and they would not, could not, know.

Hermione pulled her shirt over her head and flung it aside. She saw Draco swallow before they fell back together again, and this time his palm sought the curve of her breast, her hand the front of his trousers. They had touched each other this way before, but tentatively, curiously, in the middle of December nights, never as if the need to touch were an absolute and pressing imperative. She could feel his response to her, and his breathing grew unsteady into her lips, and after several minutes he broke away, flushed, eyes bright. One hand resting upon the button of her jeans, he whispered into the dark, “Should I?”

The disruption to the silence made Hermione suddenly aware of her body. The shape of her knees upon the patterned bedspread. The awkward feeling of her shoulders, because of the way they were positioned. She wondered suddenly if fear had made her rush into want, if they were both acting for the wrong reasons, and her hand stilled the coaxing motions it had been making. She swallowed, nervous.

Draco’s hand lifted at once. “We don’t need to,” he said, not a whisper now but a low voice, steadier, if a bit throaty. “Have you, before?”

“No,” she said. “Have—have you?”

Draco nodded, and Hermione’s nerves were suddenly compounded by self-consciousness. She instantly, unwillingly pictured Draco and Pansy. And yet the image only made her more aware of how much she wanted to touch him again, how her curiosity and desire had been building for months.

“I do want to,” she said, more firmly and decisively than she had expected, “but since I haven’t really got any experience, I might not be very good, so—”

She broke off. Draco was smiling. Blue moonlight on one incisor, grey eyes unmistakably fond.

“What?” she said.

“I won’t be scoring you on an O.W.L. scale, Granger.”

A laugh startled out of her.

“Unless you’d like me to,” he added, and she laughed again, and Draco did too, and then they were melting back together, his smile pressing into her cheek, her jaw, her neck. Slowly, Hermione’s muscles relaxed. She reached down and undid the button on her jeans, shimmied out of them in a series of motions that felt silly and ungainly. The fabric caught at her ankles and they both paused, then, to get their trousers off, suddenly in their own separate worlds of undressing as if this were the end of any normal day, but they turned back to each other soon and his body was warm and soft, they both were. She felt her own nakedness as she had rarely felt it before, like a mantle.

“Here,” said Draco, with the whisper of wood on wood in the dark. He had taken his wand from the bedside table, and passed it over her stomach. A contraceptive charm, she assumed.

She kissed him once, twice, gently, then deeply, lacing her hands about the back of his neck to take him with her as she lowered herself to the bedspread. His knees were between her own, the tip of his nose tickling the space behind her ear as his lips closed, warm and wet, well-kissed, upon her neck. Their hands found matching rhythms, uncertain and somewhat clumsy in the darkness, but after a while touching no longer felt like enough, and Hermione felt a fluttering low in her torso, and she said, “I want to.”

He went quite still. Then he nodded, swallowed, drew back from kissing her, and—slowly—did as she asked.

She held tightly to the bedspread at first, but her grip loosened after a minute or so, and as she began to breathe more deeply, more steadily, Draco’s expression eased. As he moved he had been watching her with some worry, evidently able to see the slight discomfort. “Better?” he said, and she answered in a small, unsteady voice,

“Yes, that’s—yes, I like it,” and he looked downward, moving his knees to stabilise himself. With his face angled away in that moment, Hermione reached up with a tentative hand and brushed his hair from his perspiring forehead. Such a normal motion felt strange somehow, given the circumstances, the two of them together like this. Hermione had always read about delirious abandon in these kinds of situations, but she felt surprisingly lucid, in command of herself, each pleasurable sensation humming through her in a way that did not unmoor her. She thought, as if at a distance, about how life divided itself into befores and afters. She thought about how she would remember this always, the way he touched her like an archaeologist would an artifact, the way she smoothed his hair away from his brow, the human heart of their tenderness skewered, still beating, upon the pitch-dark spit of war.

Then Draco looked back up again, and she met his eyes, and the swirl of thoughts faded. She was there with him and that was all. There was nothing more than his gaze, both fixed and wild, and the corresponding waves of her trust and desire, the way they both wanted and had each other. There was no guarantee of tomorrow, but neither could tomorrow reach inside this room and extinguish the glimmer of the present. They were safe, at least, from that much.

#

Draco had thought that with the compass in hand, finding the Elder Wand would be easy. It was a Muggle part of London, after all. How much magic could there be?

A lot of magic, was the apparent answer to that question. He, Hermione, and Potter spent three long weeks picking up stray Knuts and other discarded items. When they spent an entire day locating an ordinary drinking glass that someone had spelled with a Self-Cleaning Charm, Potter was so frustrated that he shattered the thing on a nearby brick wall, causing several massive dogs to erupt out of the underbrush in the garden and bark furiously at them until they fled.

Their story to the rest of the Order was that they were scouting new locations for safehouses in the middle of the wilderness. His parents also believed the story, to Draco’s relief. They had been protective verging on paranoid since the attack on Aberforth. Indeed, they seemed to be more frightened by the attack than Aberforth himself; the man had survived, though his left hand now hung limply by his side, the damage to his nerves irreparable. He spent most afternoons grousing about being stuck away from his goats.

Draco’s parents, on the other hand, had quite a different view. “If the Order cannot even protect a Dumbledore,” his father insisted in their tent one night, pacing back and forth, “you think they will protect you? Think, Draco! The Order of the Phoenix is a dozen wizards, most hardly of age, trapped in a single cottage. The Dark Lord controls the Ministry, the _Prophet,_ hundreds of bounty hunters. There is nowhere that his influence does not penetrate.”

“The _Prophet_ reports,” his mother added quietly, sipping a glass of wine, “that Dewhirst has been named Head of International Magical Cooperation. Soon they will have formed networks abroad. There will be nowhere to run once the Order collapses.”

But their words served only to increase Draco’s thirst to find the remaining Horcrux and the Elder Wand. They were closer than Draco had dared to hope to axing away the Dark Lord’s ties to immortality. And if they could find the unbeatable wand … if they could, somehow, win its allegiance from Snape … perhaps Potter would even have a chance against him.

Then, in mid-February, on a thoroughly unremarkable street in Surrey, Hermione let out a cry.

Draco whirled around, squinting. The days were growing longer, but nightfall had already come. This was to be their last search before they returned to headquarters for the day. He had been placing their donated brooms beneath the Invisibility Cloak while the others followed the compass.

But at the end of the road, Potter was frantically waving his hands.

Draco’s heart leapt. Surely not. Surely it was some other bit of magical debris. He didn’t want to get his hopes up.

But when he had grabbed up the Cloaked brooms and sprinted to the end of the road, he saw it in Hermione’s hand: fifteen inches of pale, dirtied wood.

“Is it the right one?” Draco breathed. “Is it—”

“It’s his,” Potter said. “I’ve seen it enough times. It’s his wand.”

They stood there in the fact of it for a long moment. Then, as one, smiles broke across their faces. Potter let out a great whoop, punching the air, and Hermione looked around, whispering, _“Harry,”_ but her own smile was brilliant, and made Draco want to laugh. They had beaten Snape, or perhaps Snape had never known. The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny—it was theirs.

They hurried into a park across the street for some privacy. After double-checking for Muggles, Hermione raised her own wand with a shaky hand and began to clean the Elder Wand, revealing its elegant engravings.

The wood began to gleam under the rising moon, and Potter began to pace back and forth, muttering to himself, a fervent glow in his eyes. “We’ll destroy the cup, then plan the ambush. I’ll go to Hogwarts. I’ll kill Snape. Then I’ll bring the wand to the ambush, and it’ll be loyal to me. We’ll get the snake. I’ll fight him.”

Draco met Hermione’s eyes. Their smiles both dimmed. “Potter …” Draco said at the same time that Hermione said,

“Harry …”

“What?” Harry said impatiently, not stopping in his strides. “We’re so close, now! Can’t you see it?”

“Harry,” Hermione said, “please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think you’ll be able to kill Snape just that simply.”

“Well, if I can’t kill Snape, then I definitely won’t be able to kill Vol—” Potter broke off, remembering they were not under the protection of the Fidelius Charm. “You-Know-Who.”

“We’ve got Ollivander,” Draco reminded him. “We can ask him if there’s some other way to win the wand than killing the person who got control over it last.”

Potter brightened. “Yeah, all right. Let’s get back and ask him right away. Here, Hermione.” He picked up the Cloak, and Hermione passed the Elder Wand to Draco while Potter and Hermione slid the broomsticks one by one back into her small beaded bag.

Draco looked down at the wand in his hand. He couldn’t believe what he was holding. All the wands that the Slytherins had used to debate over, insisting which one was better than the other—this was every wand of legend, rolled into one, here in the palm of his hand. It felt good in his hand, with a reassuring weight—nearly warm.

“Draco.”

He startled, looking up. Hermione’s arm was held out for Apparition. Draco tucked the Elder Wand into a deep, secure pocket, then took Hermione’s arm.

When they Apparated into the garden and opened the door of headquarters, Draco expected to hear the pleasant bustle of the Order preparing for dinner, spreading cutlery throughout all the cottage’s various surfaces. He expected to hear Fred and George and Lee joking from the sofa that had become their domain.

Instead, when they returned, Draco thought someone else had been attacked. The Order were knotted up in the centre of the room, gathered around something. But when the door closed and the Order broke apart, looking back at Draco, Hermione, and Potter, the looks on their faces were pure surprise. They were not gathered around an injured body but around a copy of the _Evening Prophet._

“What is it?” Hermione demanded as the three of them broke for the outstretched copy of the paper. “What’s—”

The headline at the top of the page read _MASS REVOLT AT AZKABAN_.

There was an accompanying photograph, blurry and distorted, which had clearly been taken in a great hurry. It looked as though the photographer had been fleeing—and there was no question from what.

The photograph moved through several images. First, there was the dark, plunging motion of Dementors on the attack, so many Dementors that the image appeared solid black.

Then, from nowhere or everywhere, from all four corners of the photograph, came a blast of light. The Dementors swirled as they scattered, and then they regrouped, reformed … but not before Draco caught a single glimpse of what was beyond. A massive crowd was gathered in a prison yard, and standing at forefront of the blur of faces, yelling something with his fist raised into the air, was Ron Weasley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is called The Secret-Keeper’s Tale and i have wanted to write it for like the better part of a year now. cheers!
> 
> [tumbl away with me! :)](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


	23. The Secret-Keeper's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! A small note: in this chapter I’ll be transforming a piece of the world from canon. So far, in the spirit of a DH rewrite, I’ve tried to stay as close to canon worldbuilding as possible. Obviously this is an AU, but I haven’t done anything like, say, making Stupefy a spell to turn things inside-out, or that sort of retcon.
> 
> This chapter is the first time I am retconning something of JKR’s and substituting in my own stuff. So I am dropping a note bc it may be jarring in the context of the fic so far. But I feel pretty strongly about this element and I think (hope??) it feels true to the spirit of the books! Thanks as always for reading!!

_Mid-October_

“I can’t do this,” Ron said hoarsely. “I’m done.”

He turned on his heel. Suffocating darkness closed in, and then Ron Weasley was speeding away from the Potter Cottage, away from his best friend and the girl he’d thought would be his future, away from the hot, sickly feeling of rejection.

 _Home,_ he thought, holding the destination desperately in his mind. Ron didn’t care about anything else just now, not Grindelwald or some powerful wand, nor the locket in Umbridge’s possession. His only thought was escaping the mortification on Hermione’s face, the stunned discomfort on Harry’s, the cold anger on Malfoy’s. He couldn’t take one more day in that place.

Ron burst out of the darkness in a copse of trees near Ottery St. Catchpole. This was the usual spot for local wizards to Apparate. Too far from town for Muggles to hear, the woods were also laced with Muggle-Repelling charms to deter anyone who might be out for a stroll.

It was a shock, then, that Ron appeared not in a dark, quiet stand of woodland but in the flickering light of a campfire. He was not greeted by night-time silence—but by a triumphant shout:

“ _Impedimenta!”_

Ron had no time to reach for his wand. He was blasted off his feet. His back slammed into a tree, his head knocking into a branch so hard that stars burst in his closed eyes.

“What’ve we got here, Scabior?” said a wheezy, gleeful voice.

As Ron’s vision cleared, he discerned half a dozen grubby men and women circling toward him in the reddish firelight. He tried to worm his hand into his pocket, but ropes had already snaked around him, holding him so securely to the tree that he could not move a muscle.

“Looks like ‘e could be ‘ogwarts age,” said the man called Scabior, sidling closer. “Get the truants list, Smith.”

As a woman rummaged through a knapsack at the campsite, Ron spotted a huddled line of figures on the other side of the fire, chains glinting at their hands and feet. Wild theories of this being a trap laid for Harry dissipated. _Bounty hunters,_ he realised. They must be looking for Muggle-borns and Order sympathisers on the run.

“What’s your name, ginger?” said Scabior, stepping closer to Ron. His breath smelled foul, as if he’d been camping here without cleaning his teeth for weeks.

“St-Stan … Shunpike,” Ron gasped out, still winded from impact.

“Like ‘ell it is,” said Scabior. “We know Stan Shunpike, ‘e’s put a bit of work our way.”

Ron’s vision whited out as Scabior’s ringed fist slammed into his jaw. His companions chuckled as Ron sagged against his ropes.

Ron’s mind was racing, cycling through all the foulest swearwords he knew. Why hadn’t he expected something like this? How could he have left Headquarters without his wand already in his hand?

 _Headquarters_ … Ron’s stomach dropped like a stone. If they sent him back to Hogwarts as a truant, Snape would read the secret of the Potter Cottage right out of his head.

In that instant, Ron’s wounded feelings toward his friends were blacked out by blind panic. He couldn’t let Snape get to them.

“I’m not—on that list,” he panted. “Finished Hogwarts—ages ago.”

The bounty hunters sized him up. “He’s tall enough,” one of them grunted. “Could be a fair bit older. … Mudblood on the run, then?”

“No, I’m g-going home, that’s all … I live in Ottery St. Catchpole … took a business trip …”

“Oh, really?” sneered the one with the lists. “What’s your name and address, then? Course, we’ve got every wizard on the local registry marked down here.”

Ron gaped at the stack of papers in her hands. “I …”

The bounty hunters’ faces all resolved into leering satisfaction. “Mudblood, this one,” said the woman with the papers, to murmurs of agreement.

With an icy rush, Ron realised that this alternative was even worse than Hogwarts. If they thought he was on the run from the law, they’d bring him to the Ministry. Someone there would recognise Arthur Weasley’s son, one of the six who had broken into the Department of Mysteries.

They’d realise he’d been on the run with Harry. He wouldn’t be turned over to Snape but to Bellatrix Lestrange.

For the first time, Ron really felt the weight of being the Secret-Keeper. He remembered how proud he’d felt the night he’d agreed to take it on, when Hermione and Harry had looked at him with such confidence that he’d felt it glowing in himself like a heated chunk of gold. Now, struggling madly against his restraints, Ron pictured them back at Headquarters. Were they waiting for him to return? Would they go to sleep expecting him to be back by morning, then awaken in the middle of the night to see Bellatrix’s face full of mad delight in the darkness, the woman having torn the secret out of Ron’s mind?

“I still ‘aven’t ‘eard a name, ginger,” said Scabior softly, stepping closer. Ron’s mind was a panicked roar. He needed time. He needed a plan. He had neither.

“Go to hell,” he gasped, wrenching hard at the ropes.

Scabior punched him again. This time his knuckles hit Ron square in the nose.

A nasty _crack_ sound. Pain shot up into Ron’s head like a breath of freezing air, and he did the only thing he could think of to buy himself more time. He slumped forward and pretended to fall unconscious.

There was the sound of Scabior spitting at his feet. “Pathetic,” said the bounty hunter. “Search ‘im and put ‘im with the others, you three. We’ll question ‘im properly in the morning.”

Hands groped into his pockets, worming between the ropes. One yanked his wand free, but as they reached his trousers, something curious happened. One of the hunters was feeling around in the front pocket where Ron always kept the Deluminator. He knew he’d had it before Disapparating from Headquarters … and yet the hunter said nothing, seemed to feel nothing.

As the bounty hunters cut the ropes, Ron let himself drop like a rag doll. Someone half-caught him, then kicked him roughly to the ground to laughs from the others. Ribs aching, Ron considered trying to grab one of their wands, making a go of fighting—but there were too many, three assigned to him now, three others who would join in instantly.

When Ron had been searched, the hunters dragged him across the campsite and slung him against a log. He had to force himself not to groan as his spine hit a hard knot in the wood. Then magical chains were snaking around him, footsteps retreating.

It was a long time before Ron dared to sneak a look through his cracked eyelids.

His eyes widened inadvertently. Staring down at him were Ted Tonks and Dean Thomas. Ted’s fair hair was matted with dirt and sweat, and his big belly was hanging slack as if it hadn’t been properly filled in a while. Dean was downright gaunt, his dark skin burnished by the firelight.

Ron opened his mouth, but Ted breathed, looking down at the ground, “Not now, son.”

So Ron let his eyes sag shut again. The pain in his face was spectacular, pulsing from his jaw to his nose and back. After a long while, Ron heard the last rustles of the Snatchers entering their tents. The prisoners were left outside to the elements.

Only then did they risk conversation. “Ted,” Ron whispered, sitting up. “Dean.” His eyes strayed over the other captives—two young women who looked like they might be sisters, huddled together at the end of the log, and a man on Dean’s other side who looked vaguely familiar.

“I’m Dirk Cresswell,” whispered this man. “You’re Arthur’s son, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Ron whispered back. Now he remembered meeting Dirk at the Ministry once—one of the understaffed Goblin Liaison office, with circles under his eyes from too many nights preparing goblin defence cases in the courts. He looked twice as tired now, his curly dark hair rumpled and his robes torn.

“What’s happening?” Dean whispered. “I thought you were sick at your parents’ place.”

Ron hesitated, licking the blood off his lips. “I can’t say much. Safer that way.”

“Right. But Harry? Hermione?”

Ron felt a pang of shame. “They’re all right,” he mumbled. “Look, I’ve got to get out of here. Reckon you can—can help me with my chains, or—”

Ted Tonks shook his head. “If there were any way out, don’t you think we’d have done it ourselves?” he said, not unkindly.

Ron tried to reach his front pocket, where he could feel the Deluminator, but the chains were unforgiving. Eventually he gave up. What was the use, anyway? In the months since finding the small silver tool, it hadn’t revealed a single use besides turning out the lights.

 _Typical,_ Ron thought with a bitter taste in his mouth _._ Dumbledore had bequeathed Gryffindor’s sword to Harry. To Hermione, the legendary wizard had left a secret message about Grindelwald. And what had Ron been given? A parlour trick.

“Listen,” he whispered, “I mustn’t be turned in to Snape or the Death Eaters. It’s important.” He gave the others a meaningful look, hoping they would understand it was about the Order without him having to give them too much information.

“There’s no other option,” said Dean hopelessly. “Since I’ve got no proper Wizarding family tree, they’ll send me to the Ministry to put me on trial.”

Ted nodded. “It’s the same for me,” he whispered with a comforting nudge to Dean’s leg. “We’ll probably get a year or less in Azkaban for carrying wands, and after that, they’ll release us … expect us to live as Muggles.”

“I’ll warn you two …” Dirk Cresswell’s serious face looked sunken in the faint glow of the smouldering embers. “It’s not much of a trial.”

“You’ve already been tried?” Ron said.

Cresswell nodded. “Had my family tree forged. I managed to escape on the way to Azkaban. They’ll bring me right back, I suppose.”

A hard lump rose in Ron’s throat. At once he saw the strategy laid out before him. It felt instinctive, as strategies always did to him.

 _Of course,_ he thought, feeling numb. He remembered being twelve years old and gazing up into the blank face of the white queen. Now, again, he was to play the sacrificial piece.

“They’ll bring you back to Azkaban,” he said quietly, “no questions asked?”

The other three all looked at him with sombre understanding.

Cresswell nodded. “No questions asked.”

“Did you escape with anyone, Dirk?” Ron asked, trying to sound braver than he felt. “Other convicts, I mean?”

“Two others,” Cresswell said, licking his cracked lips. “An older witch from the Obliviation Squads, and a younger bloke, Samuel Gittyburrough. 23 or 24. Assistant to someone in Accidents and Catastrophes. You might be able to pass for him.”

“Does he look like Ron?” Dean whispered.

Ted twitched his nose, trying to push his small spectacles up into place. “That won’t matter, Dean. The Snatchers’ lists don’t have descriptions. No room, with thousands of Muggle-borns to find. … Just name, age, and blood status.”

“And the Dementors won’t care who they’re taking in,” said Cresswell, mouth twisted with contempt. “They’ll be pleased to have a warm new body.”

The hair on the back of Ron’s neck lifted. As they listened to the hiss of dying embers, Cresswell considered Ron. “Our sentences were all five years, Weasley. Are you sure you know what you’re …”

“Yeah,” Ron said shortly. “I’ve got no choice.”

But as he turned over to try and sleep, fear cocooned him like long, cold fingers.

#

Ron stood on the edge of the rocky island, staring up at the wizard prison with his heart in his throat.

Azkaban was a dark monolith reaching up to the flat grey sky. There were no seabirds, no signs of life whatsoever. A pall hung over the place as if over a deathbed. Even from here, the Apparition point at the farthest tip of the island, Ron felt coldness radiating out and down, moving through him. At his shoulder, Dirk Cresswell shuddered.

Ron began to see them as the Snatchers shoved them up the path: hooded Dementors, drifting over the surface of the prison in their uncanny way, dwarfed by the blunt rock face. _Remember how Sirius kept his head in there_ , Ron told himself. _Remember, you haven’t done anything wrong …_

But then his eyes fixed on the door ahead, that black notch in the side of the impenetrable wall. With a sudden wave of terror he considered trying to break away from the Snatchers. He considered the edge of the island, the drop-off into churning ocean.

He kept walking.

#

_Bang._ The cell door slammed shut as Ron staggered in, the tendrils of cold knotted so tightly inside his lungs that he scraped breaths like an asthmatic. He scrambled away from the Dementor’s hooded face looming beyond the bars.

He was dimly aware that he’d told himself to remember something outside, some kind of reassurance … but there were so many Dementors. The halls had seethed with them like a dark tide.

 _Remember,_ he told himself. _Remember …_

No memory came. There was only the numb horror of being inside this minuscule cell, wandless, hopeless, dressed in ragged prison clothes. They’d stripped him of his robes. Ron had watched them flung away by the scant few human guards, even the tiny comfort of the useless Deluminator gone now.

There was nothing left except the threadbare blanket on the rank mattress beneath the window. The window itself was barely a two-inch slit in the wall, allowing nearly no light. Still, Ron scrambled up onto the cot and put his eye up to the slit. He looked out on the endless ocean, trying to catch his breath. He did this for hours, until the sun set and the night began.

It was a night more awful than any other. Ron sank back onto the cot, gasping, as the cold of the Dementors sank into his marrow. The darkness pressed down against his body, amplifying the thoughts that had engulfed him all day.

 _Of course you’d wind up here, Ron … haven’t you always been useless? … Really, this is the best thing you could do, rot in here_ … _Harry would never have run_ … _Hermione would have thought to be prepared with her wand …_

Ron stared at the ceiling, jaw slack. How had he ever helped his friends, really? He’d been trapped by the cave-in at the Chamber of Secrets, unconscious while Harry and Hermione saved Sirius together … attacked by brains in the Department of Mysteries, reduced to vomiting slugs when he’d tried to stand up for Hermione in second year …

He could see it so clearly now. He was nothing beside either of them. So he’d won a few Quidditch matches—so what? Harry was the real star of the team, everyone knew that. Fred and George had outshone Ron before they’d left, and Ginny had begun to outshine him even though she was younger.

At the thought of his family, Ron curled into a ball. When had his mum or dad ever really seemed to think he was special or capable? When he’d gotten the Prefect’s badge, maybe … yes, that had been one good evening … Ron tried to cling to the memory of that night, the party in his honour … but even that was soured, because hadn’t Hermione assumed it would be Harry? She’d been stunned when she’d seen it was him.

Probably Hermione had realised over the last year, while Ron was humiliating himself with Lavender, how much better she liked Harry. If Ron ever got out of here, it would be to find them together. The prodigy and the Chosen One. They would laugh at the idea that he’d ever tagged along beside them as if he belonged.

He tried to cling to memories with Harry and Hermione, the comfortable evenings they had spent in Gryffindor Tower, but even the happiest images were tainted by the fact that he was least of the three friends, least of the seven siblings, never impressive or desirable. And his own desires … his feelings for Hermione, his desperation for acclaim and approval … childish, humiliating.

A fresh wave of cold washed into the cell as a pair of Dementors passed outside. Ron turned over, freezing, shivering, gasping—and felt a lump in the pocket of his prison clothes.

Confusion disrupted the waves of despair. He slipped his hand into the front pocket and somehow, impossibly, felt the warm metal of the Deluminator.

Hope surged in Ron’s throat. He yanked the Deluminator out of his pocket, not understanding how it had returned to him—but surely there would be help within …

He depressed the silver catch. Nothing happened.

“No,” Ron moaned, wiping cold sweat from his face. “No, no …”

He clicked it over and over, but there was no light in the cell to collect. The Deluminator held nothing for him.

He collapsed back onto the cot and stuffed the useless Deluminator through a tear in his mattress, hiding it deep in the filthy insulation within. Let it stay there forever, buried, this reminder of his own unimportance.

Without an ounce of strength left, Ron collapsed into sleep.

#

Every day was the same in Azkaban. Ron awoke from nightmares and ate the hard bread and water that were left inside his door, chewing and swallowing mechanically.

For one hour each day, lower-security prisoners were allowed to walk around the yard, a grim gravel plain enclosed by Azkaban’s interior walls. Ron’s hour was spent with others from the same prison sector, including Dirk Cresswell, who looked more wan than ever. The first few days, Ron dimly thought he recognised a few other faces around the yard. Someone who might have been a shop assistant at Florian Fortescue’s ice cream parlour. A parent he might have glimpsed at Platform 9¾.

Then Ron stopped caring about faces, names, identities. The only thing left was pointless habit. He walked with Dirk Cresswell, but most of the other prisoners were so weak and hopeless that they merely huddled against the walls.

Every other hour was indistinguishable. Ron lay in his cell, dreading the rattling approach of Dementors on their rounds, who would occasionally hover outside the door. When they were near, Ron’s feelings became as raw as wounds. He saw himself with brutal perspective, as if seeing an unflattering candid photograph: Ron Weasley, a boy with no real accomplishments except to be in proximity to Harry Potter.

Around nightfall, a second meal. Then hours of impenetrable darkness. A feeling of such aloneness that Ron felt as if he were being peeled out of himself little by little.

#

Time passed.

Ron was not sure how many days, then not sure how many weeks, but surely it had been weeks.

He could hardly see Dirk Cresswell’s face in the yard when they met to walk. There was the dim recognition one day that Dean Thomas and Ted Tonks had, indeed, been convicted too—for there they were in the yard.

They trudged, the four of them, around in a circle. It did not occur to Ron to speak. All curiosity had gone from him. The world was rolled out flat. No colour.

Eventually he could not walk anymore. He sat against one of the walls as so many did, and it seemed to make sense to him, fading into obscurity once and for all.

#

Ron’s eyes slid open. Trying to fall into sleep, he could have sworn he had heard a voice. Not a moan or a cry echoing down the hall, but a tiny, muffled voice within the cell.

So, he was going mad. It was not such a surprise. It was becoming harder and harder even to force down food. Of course his mind would go next.

When he lifted his heavy head, he could hear nothing, but when he lay back down to sleep again, his ear pressed to the mattress, he could hear the faint whisper:

_Ron._

It was coming from inside the mattress.

Ron slipped his hand into the rip, felt around until his hand touched metal, and withdrew the Deluminator with trembling fingers.

Harry’s voice echoed inside, sounding determined: _Ron._

And within moments, Hermione’s had joined it, full of concern. _Ron …_

Uncomprehending, Ron depressed the Deluminator’s silver catch and peered down into its chamber. Inside he saw two wisps of light, hanging there like tiny unicorn hairs, ethereal, seemingly weightless. One for each utterance.

He clicked the catch again and again, but the wisps were too feeble to issue out into the air, as other lights once had. They merely stirred within.

“Harry?” he croaked. “Hermione? Can … can you hear me?”

But there was no response. Only the faint echo of their voices saying his name.

A cloak rustled beyond his door. Ron let the Deluminator’s catch snap shut again, but once the Dementor had gone, he pressed the button again and looked down into the infinitesimal glow. For weeks, with the Deluminator muffled in the mattress, maybe he had been missing whispers like these.

The wisps barely cast enough light to see the outline of his finger in the darkness. The fog of misery was too thick to think properly, but the voices eased his mind in an animal way. _They’re alive,_ he thought _. Somewhere, they’re alive._

#

Soon afterward—or maybe a long time, it was impossible to tell—other voices joined the cohort, one by one. Ron began to keep the Deluminator in his pocket again, and so he heard them when they arrived.

 _Ron,_ spoken by his mother in a choked whisper. _Ron,_ his father’s voice thin. _Ron,_ Ginny and Neville and Luna. The twins. Charlie and Bill and even Fleur Delacour.

The whispers collected in the Deluminator, and Ron looked down into the tiny glow of its chamber after nightfall. The light couldn’t fix anything, but Ron found that he could make himself walk in the yard again.

One afternoon, trudging along beside the others, he had his hand affixed around the Deluminator in his pocket. Even holding it gave him some comfort. Childish, maybe, but he’d decided he was not above childishness.

Through the usual dark fog, he remembered that last night he had heard Seamus Finnigan’s voice saying, in a bracing sort of way, _Ron._

He rasped out, “Did you see Seamus over the summer?”

The words were such a disruption of the hollow, sea-swept silence that all three of Ron’s walking companions stopped in their tracks, looking at him with blank, hopeless eyes. Dean, Ted, and Dirk looked nearly unrecognisable, so sunken were their faces.

“Seamus,” Dean repeated in not much more than a whisper. “Yeah. … I went to his for a week in August.”

“Had you been before?”

Dean had to think a long time, as though he were paging slowly through a book of memories. Then he said, “Yeah. Before the Quidditch World Cup. … I went with him and his mum.”

“The Cup …” Colour migrated across Ron’s vision. Tents with shamrocks upon them. Bulgarian Quidditch robes plummeting through a cheering stadium. “We didn’t see you there.”

“Seamus mentioned seeing you.” Dean paused. “You and Harry and Hermione.”

“Yeah,” Ron managed.

They did not speak for the rest of the walk.

After sunset that night, Ron huddled under his threadbare blanket and clicked the Deluminator. He peered down into the chamber, and for an instant, his muscles eased. The edges of the painful feelings were filed away by the light.

He wondered, vaguely, if the light seemed stronger than it had last night.

Ron held the Deluminator away from his eye. Yes. There was no mistake. There was now enough light within to illume the colour of his freckles beneath the blanket, and suddenly he was reckoning with the fact of his body, his existence, when he looked down at his bony hands and arms.

He realised how very hungry he was. Ravenous.

Ron’s mind felt slow and stupid, but actual thought was forming for the first time in weeks, thought outside the crushing repetition of his own worthlessness: _Why is it stronger?_

He’d spoken to Dean in the yard. He’d been holding the Deluminator then.

Ron leaned forward and whispered into the Deluminator. “The Quidditch World Cup …” He clenched his eyes shut, brow furrowed, searching for something to give the light. “The Quidditch World Cup … I l-liked going.”

He could feel the press of Azkaban all around him, tearing at the memory, reminding him how he’d made a fool of himself over the Veela there … reminding him that at the end of that night, the Death Eaters had attacked the site … begun their reign of terror, which had led to all this …

But he didn’t take his eyes from the Deluminator’s light. “We were in the Top Box,” he croaked. “Dad was proud he could take us. … Harry loved it, we got him away from the Dursleys, Hermione liked reading about Quidditch for once. … Best seats in the stadium, and they said Ireland was the best team in decades …”

The words left him shaking, almost nauseated. They took so much from him. And yet Ron could see, before his eyes, the light pulsing below, the wisps coalescing into a bead of light the size of a fingernail. He watched it as long as he could, but his strength had been sapped, and he fell into unconsciousness.

#

The days that followed were agonising in fresh ways. The coldness of the air, Ron’s omnipresent hunger and sadness, the ugliness of the prison, the pain in every face in the yard … these things were more acute than before, and yet Ron knew it was because he was becoming lucid again.

Every night he whispered a happy memory into the Deluminator. The effect of the Dementors was such that the memories seemed to want to turn to dark pockets of fear or anxiety, but Ron gritted his teeth and stared into the light until it bored spots in his vision, and he made himself speak only the good.

And so he could count time again. The first night was the World Cup. The second, his victory in Quidditch in fifth year. And so on.

After a week of depositing memories into the Deluminator, he holed up one night under the blanket and clicked the catch.

Light rushed out. It hung under the blanket, shapeless, the size of a walnut, and Ron took in a gasp of air as warmth sheathed him like a comforter, the first moment of relief he’d had since entering Azkaban. Suddenly thoughts began to form, frantic, one upon another, building.

He clung to the Deluminator and whispered to it, “I’m—I’m doing the best I can. I’m keeping them safe.”

The light hovering before him was the size of his fist. He leaned close to it and heard Harry’s and Hermione’s voices again. _Ron._

“I’m keeping them safe,” he gasped out. “All this time I’ve been here—I’ve kept them safe.”

The light pulsed and grew.

Ron held the Deluminator right up against his lips. It was warm. It fogged with his breath. He realised how firm his grip was. He felt the beat of his heart and the ragged edge of his nerves. “I’m here for a reason,” he said.

#

The next day, Ron’s trip to the yard was different. For the first time, he took note of which way the Dementors led their shuffling band through the prison. He did the same the next day, and the next, until he remembered the system of corridors and could retrace them in his head.

In the yard, he walked alongside his three companions. He wished he could let the light out to give them strength, too, but the Dementors who stood along the yard would surely detect the disturbance.

Instead he whispered, “Don’t stop walking, don’t look at me. But I got something into the prison.”

Their steps faltered, but Dean, Ted, and Dirk continued on. “How, son?” Ted whispered. “If they catch you …”

“They won’t. Here. Take it.”

He slipped the Deluminator into Ted’s hand, and Ted drew a small gasp. Ron felt the absence of the warmth at once, a sagging of his spirits. “Hold your hands up to your mouth like you’re breathing into them,” he whispered. “And say something happy. Whisper a happy memory into it.”

Ted’s kindly face was ashen. Ron heard him straining as he whispered, “Nymphadora … my Dora … the day she was born. Dromeda was in labour six hours. When we held Dora … we both cried, we were so happy, and Dromeda never cries.”

For the whole hour, they walked and passed the Deluminator, whispering memories under the guise of warming their hands. And as they walked, Ron noted that the courtyard was shaped like a pentagon. He noted the five exits and the sheer, windowless walls.

That night, with the force of the others’ memories, the Deluminator’s light grew even stronger. Ron didn’t dare let the light out for long, with the Dementors’ ceaseless patrols. But day after day, the four of them walked and spoke; night after night, Ron’s happy memories were coming more easily. Now he could whisper hours’ worth into the Deluminator, and when he recounted Quidditch matches, it was not so tempting to focus on Harry’s prodigious talent, Ginny’s star quality, the twins’ zany reliability. These were Ron’s own memories. In these moments, to the Deluminator, he was the one that mattered most.

One night, he was recounting a memory from third year, Snape calling Hermione an insufferable know-it-all and Ron snapping back, _You asked a question and she knows the answer. Why ask if you don’t want to be told?_ He’d received detention for it, of course, but the happy memory was that moment of defensive pride in Hermione, the impressed hush that had fallen over the class, the way he’d felt nothing but defiant clarity.

And then, quite without meaning to, Ron was whispering to the Deluminator, “I stand up for my friends.”

The Deluminator burned hot in his hand. Startled, he clicked it. The light that issued out—the size of a tangerine now—pulsed fiercely. Ron flinched back against the dripping wall. The glow seemed to push out some of the sickly darkness that had seeped so deeply into him that it lined his organs.

 _I stand up for my friends,_ Ron thought again. Yes, he’d had arguments with Hermione, envied Harry his fame … but so, too, had he sworn that he would stay by their side until the end, knowing that death might lie at the end of that road. He would fight to save them always. And it was not something to brag about, as he had once boasted about his Quidditch saves by the lake. It was simply a fact about himself that—Ron realised—he felt proud of.

He looked into the light, swallowed, and whispered, “Yeah. That’s what I do. I stand up for my friends, and my family, too.”

The light pulsed, and Ron realised he could no longer look into its centre, for it had grown blinding there, too bright to see with the naked eye.

Then there was a noise down the hall. Ron startled, clicked the Deluminator out once more, and toppled back to the cot, cold and fear drenching him. Had the Dementors sensed the light? Worse, had they discovered his real identity? He felt many Dementors on their way up the hall, a tide of ice …

No. It was a new prisoner. A tiny voice was begging, moaning, “No—let me out … please, let me out …”

When he heard the _clang_ of the cell door beside him, the echoes didn’t cut off. In fact, the voice seemed to be piercing through the wall, only weak cries now. “Please …”

Ron crept to the source of the voice and realised there was a deep crack through one of the stones. It was scarcely millimetres wide, but it admitted the sound of the prisoner in the cell beside him.

He waited until he was sure the Dementors had gone. Then he pulled his cot into the corner, leaned against the wall, and whispered against the crack, “Hey.”

No response except the crying. As loudly as he dared, he said, “Can you hear me?”

The cries broke off. There was the sound of bare feet on damp stone. Then a ragged whisper. “Yes. … Who are you?”

“My name’s Ron. And you?”

There was a long pause. Ear pressed to the stone, Ron thought he could hear the sticky sound of a hand wiping a nose, a soft _thump_ like she’d rested her head back against the wall. “E-Elaine,” she whispered.

“Right. Elaine. Are you all—” Ron bit his tongue, grimacing; of course she wasn’t all right.

Ron had never been much good at reassurances. He could manage silent, physical comfort all right, but when it came to talking about feelings … how many times had Hermione told him he was hopeless? _Hopeless,_ echoed her imagined voice in his mind as the fog and the drear crept back in.

Clinging to the warm metal of the Deluminator, Ron said, “Look, I know it’s awful, but you’ve got to hang on as best you can.”

Elaine sniffled. “And how am I supposed to do that?”

“They let us out every day for an hour. I’ll find you in the yard tomorrow.”

But the next day, there was no one new in the yard. Ron spent the hour with Dean, Ted, and Dirk as usual, whispering memories. His walking companions seemed half-roused from their stupor these days, too, strengthened by the daily touch of the Deluminator.

That night, after bolting down his meagre dinner, Ron clambered back onto his cot and leaned close to the crack in the wall. “Hey,” he whispered, “are you there?”

That sound again of feet on the grimy floor of next door’s cell. Then Elaine whispered, “I’m here.”

“Why weren’t you in the yard today?”

“I can’t come out.”

“Why not? It’ll help.”

“Help?” she said in a hollow whisper. “No. It’ll make everything worse. … They …”

She was crying again. Ron glanced to the door. There was no noise from the hall, so he clicked the Deluminator, then tried to push the glowing ball of light through the crack—but it merely hovered by the stone, unable to penetrate into her cell.

A soft, menacing rattle from outside. Ron extinguished the light and sagged against the wall, gloom creeping back into every corner of the room.

“What was the p-point,” Elaine choked out. “What was the point in any of it … and now I’m as good as …”

Ron was beginning to feel panicked now. “Don’t cry, all right? Please don’t cry.”

No answer. Just the sound of sobs, and no one was going to come and help her, no one would help either of them …

The Deluminator pulsed in his hand.

“Tell me a happy memory,” Ron whispered.

Her sobs petered out. “A—a happy …”

“Memory, yeah.” Ron held the Deluminator up to the crack in the wall. “Go on. Anything you like.”

There was a long pause. Then she rasped, “On holiday with my family … we went to Greece, the six of us, and there was one day when it rained. S-so everyone else stayed inside and I got to go out by myself, no one cared. I sat by the seaside and it was still sweltering, even though it was raining. And I felt like … like I could do anything. Just for myself.”

“You’ve got a big family,” Ron said. “So have I. Five older brothers and a little sister. I’m second-youngest.” He paused, then admitted, “I never used to feel like I could live up to the rest of them.”

He wasn’t even sure why he was saying it, but he had to fill the silence, keep her from dissolving into tears again. He had to remind himself of the past, or the present would overwhelm him, too.

“It’s worse being the oldest,” she whispered. “The second you go to Hogwarts you’re old news.”

And at the mention of school, Ron realized he remembered an Elaine a year above them, in Ravenclaw. “Have you finished Hogwarts?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Were you any good at anything?” he asked. At once he wondered if that was insensitive. He was sure Hermione would have thought so, but Elaine just gave a dead-sounding little laugh.

“I had friends,” she said, “which was all I really cared about. Or I thought I had friends. A war gives it away, I suppose, who’s a real friend and who isn’t.”

Ron thought he heard bitterness in her whisper. _Muggle-born,_ he thought, heart sinking. Clearly Elaine’s friends hadn’t felt she was worth the trouble. Suddenly he felt angry at them. “It’s rubbish,” he whispered. “Absolute bollocks, all of it. That you’re here, and that you don’t have better friends. I reckon now that you’re … well, now they can see what idiots they’ve been.”

She sniffled, but whispered back, “How’s that for a happy thought,” and this time, surprised, Ron was the one to laugh.

#

Ron loathed every stone in his cell with a passion. He loathed the arch above the narrow door. He loathed the flagstone floor whose grit stuck between his toes. He loathed the tiny arrow slit, through which he sometimes stared at a rare blue sky.

He loathed all but the cracked stone through which Elaine’s voice issued.

At first they spoke every night, collecting happy memories. Then they began to speak through most days, too. Ron soon found that the simple presence of her voice helped keep the darkness at bay as much as the ambient power of the Deluminator.

It helped that Elaine was mercurial, hard to predict. She sometimes seemed wounded or defensive, like a skittish animal; she loathed speaking about her parents so much that Ron learned quickly not to ask. She could turn back clever remarks but never sounded pleased with herself. Her happiest memories mostly took place in complete isolation, and she wanted to do something artistic with her life, something with finesse. She never spoke above a hoarse whisper, and when Ron pressed his ear to the stone, he sometimes closed his eyes and tried to imagine her. He thought about asking her what she looked like, then told himself he was being an idiot.

He was nearly always the one to instigate conversation, though. This began to worry him. One afternoon, sitting with his knees hugged to his chest, he struggled to quell a particularly painful memory of his fight with Hermione in fourth year, after the Yule Ball. He hadn’t been able to tell what she wanted then, or in sixth year. What if Elaine, his one bright spot in this miserable cell, wished he would leave her alone? Hermione had called him insensitive, Fred and George had always called him an idiot, a prat … what if his presence was just one more part of the torture of this place to Elaine?

“Do you mind me talking to you so much,” Ron managed to force out.

“No,” she whispered back. Then, quickly, as if she were ashamed, “I like it.”

“All right. Good.” Ron let out a shaky laugh. “I like talking to you, too. Even if you fall asleep when I’m talking.”

“That was once,” she said. “And I slept better than usual that night.”

Ron hesitated. “I could do it again. If you’d like.”

“What?”

“I could talk you to sleep.” He felt his cheeks growing warm. “Forget it. Stupid id—”

“Yes,” she broke in.

A moment’s silence.

“All right.” Ron swallowed. “What shall I tell you?”

“Your oldest brother,” she whispered back. “The one who works for Gringotts … tell me more about him. How you got on when you were younger.”

And this went on. Each night, one would talk the other to sleep. When it was Elaine’s turn, she would veto topic after topic until Ron picked one that was apparently inoffensive to her. She liked describing places: the feeling of tropical air on her skin, the interiors of old buildings. But when it was Ron’s turn to lull her to sleep, Elaine always asked him to tell her simple things, like his childhood Quidditch experiences or his favourite foods, things that made him say, “Oh, blimey, where do I start.”

Eventually Ron realised he’d never described the Deluminator to her. He did so. “And I can see your memories making it stronger,” he said. “When you tell me … well, all the things you’ve told me, I can see it growing brighter. If you’d just come to the yard, I could show it to you. It’d make you feel better.”

But Elaine didn’t reply. Ron sighed, pulling away from the wall. She’d taken to doing this—going quiet whenever he tried to coax her out of her cell. He understood wanting to limit contact with the Dementors, but he couldn’t help wanting to meet the person on the other side of the wall, the only comfort in the long nights when the Dementors were passing by outside their doors. Sometimes, when patrols were frequent, they would whisper back and forth the only words they could manage:

“I’m here.”

Although Elaine never appeared in the prison yard, Ron began to notice other new arrivals. There had been a sudden uptick in the number of prisoners.

“Why do you reckon there are so many?” he said to Dirk, Dean, and Ted.

“One way to find out,” said Dirk, approaching one of the new arrivals, a small, balding man.

What he told them hit Ron like a sack of bricks. The Order of the Phoenix had attacked Malfoy Manor when the entire Ministry had been gathered there. As a result, the Ministry was raiding homes even more aggressively, resulting in leaping numbers of arrests.

The Ministry … _Umbridge,_ Ron thought. Harry and Hermione must have been trying to steal her Horcrux at that Christmas event.

To remember their quest was jarring. Even more jarring was the idea that he’d been in Azkaban for over two months.

“Did they catch anyone?” whispered Ted to the balding man. “Did the Death Eaters catch any of the Order?”

The man nodded, looking back with that bleary hopelessness that was so familiar by now. “They put them in maximum security,” the man murmured. “I heard them say it. Top floor.”

He spoke the names. Then he drifted away, leaving them to stare up at the windowless walls, behind which lay Molly, Arthur, and Percy Weasley.

That night, Ron huddled in front of the light, letting its strength and clarity wash over him. He felt more like himself than he had since the outside world. This light … it gave them solace. Could it possibly do more than that?

He felt the creeping cold of a patrol. This time, he did not extinguish the Deluminator. He steeled himself and let the blanket fall away.

Light flooded his tiny cell. The Dementor outside shied back, confused. It tried to approach the cell door, then shuddered, repulsed, and fled down the hall.

Ron hurriedly stashed the Deluminator within his torn mattress. He lay down, pretending at sleep, just in time. He heard the rattling breath of multiple Dementors. They had come to investigate the anomaly. _Please,_ he thought as coldness curled around his heart, all plans and plots fading from his mind, _please, let them go … let it go … make it stop …_

Eventually, they did, leaving him filmed in sweat. He fished the Deluminator out from its hiding place and clutched it to his chest, gasping.

The Dementor had retreated from the light. The Deluminator had been powerful enough, then, to scare away one, possibly two … could it be enough to help his family and the Order break free? Dean, Ted, Dirk, and Elaine?

Ron remembered how the light had intensified when he had spoken confidently to it. He gritted his teeth and breathed, “I-I don’t give up on people. That’s another thing.” He pictured his mum and dad floors away. Percy, who had apparently chosen to do the right thing. “I won’t give up on helping them.”

As the Deluminator burned hot, Ron closed his eyes, pushing pieces in his mind. There could be no sacrifices this time. He needed a perfect game.

He looked down at the silver piece in his hand and saw the winning move.

#

Dementors were blind creatures. They could only feel the essence of human emotions shifting through space. To human guards, there might have been something suspicious in the way Ron moved throughout the prison yard in the days that followed, speaking to new clusters of huddled prisoners. But the Dementors could not distinguish between acquaintances and strangers. They knew nothing of strategy or empathy. Their only impulse was to feed, and Ron would take advantage of their ignorance.

He coaxed memory after memory from the prisoners. He heard stories of weddings and births, of golden days with old friends and high academic marks. The stories came in agonised strains at first, then in frantic confessions. When each prisoner whispered into the Deluminator, Ron could see it buoying them up, reminding them of something within that was beginning to stir once more.

They made another valuable ally in the prison yard: Augusta Longbottom, who had swept into the place her first day as if Azkaban were a court and she were nobility, her body trembling but her eyes flinty. As Augusta had only been under the Dementors’ influence a matter of hours, she was able to see a number of holes. “There are four human guards on duty,” she reminded them. “What do you plan to do about them?”

She had addressed this to Ted and Dirk, but both older men faced Ron. “Ask Weasley,” said Dirk. “It’s his operation.”

Augusta Longbottom scanned Ron up and down with a critical eye. “Yes, my grandson has told me about you … Prefect, aren’t you? Gryffindor Keeper? Fought with Neville at the Department of Mysteries?”

Ron found he was standing straighter than usual, Deluminator held in hand. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “As for the guards, their wands might be useful …”

But while the plan built in secret, Elaine was deteriorating. Ron had told her every detail of the escape attempt, yet she still refused to come into the yard. Ron had no chance to try and pull her out, for when he was released for the hour, the Dementors stood sentry at his door, making sure he followed the hunched, shuffling crowd.

In isolation this way, she was succumbing to the Dementors. Ron could hear it. She couldn’t speak him to sleep anymore, couldn’t muster the life. Her happy memories were fewer, feebler. Her voice was turning hollow, losing all inflection, and occasionally she would fall into quiet, keening sobs halfway through a sentence. Sometimes she spoke not to Ron, apparently, but to people in her mind. “I’m sorry,” she’d whisper over and over, nearly insensible. “I’m sorry for everything … I thought it mattered …”

One night, he whispered her name through the crack in the wall, and she did not respond.

“Elaine,” he hissed. “Elaine! Are you there?”

Ron felt as if he were falling headlong into a cold pool. Had she been eating? He’d forgotten to ask, the past few days.

Surely she couldn’t be dead?

“Please be there,” Ron moaned. “Please be alive.”

“Or else what?” came the tiny shred of a whisper in response.

Ron’s heart missed a beat. He whispered back, “Or else I’ll never get to meet you.”

An unformed sound that might have been the start of a laugh.

“We’re escaping soon,” he pushed on. “This week. I’ve got memories from everyone in the yard. I can’t even open the Deluminator anymore, it’s painful to look at. You’ve got to be ready.”

Elaine didn’t acknowledge this, didn’t say yes or no. She just rasped, “Promise me something.”

“Yeah?”

“Remember the things I’ve said, would you?”

“Don’t talk like that. You’ve just got to hold on one more week.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she whispered, but when he asked what she meant, she didn’t reply.

#

“Tonight,” was the whisper passed throughout the prison yard.

“Tonight.”

#

Ron made his move an hour after dinner. Dirk Cresswell’s window slit looked out at the Apparition point, and according to his information, the night guard appeared not long after dinner each evening.

So, Ron waited until he was certain the guard had changed, and they would have eight uninterrupted hours on the island. He waited until a Dementor patrol approached his cell.

Then he clicked the Deluminator.

He hadn’t dared press its catch for weeks. He’d expected a forceful display, but he was unprepared for the brilliance that erupted from its silver lip. The whole room was erased by bright white light, making Ron cry out and fall back. He heard a hoarse rattle at the distant end of the hall—the Dementor had been thrust back as if by the charge of a Patronus.

He clicked the Deluminator again, reclaiming the light into its silver chamber, and bundled into his cot, waiting for them to check on him, the way they had before.

Elaine’s voice came from the corner. A hoarse whisper. “Ron,” she said, as if testing his name.

“Yeah?” he breathed back.

“Good luck.”

There was no time to respond. The Dementors’ keys were scraping in the lock of his door.

_Clunk._

The door creaked wide.

Ron jumped to his feet, held the Deluminator forward, and let the light blast out.

The force of the glow made the three Dementors rocket back like motes of sand caught in a surf. Ron sprinted out after them, down the hall, surrounded by light. The force of the Deluminator was such that luminescence rang all the way up and down the hallway, making the damp stones glitter painfully. Its power was sinking into Ron, every memory and confident assurance he had accumulated, filling his body with the type of surety he had never felt in his life.

But there was no time to revel in the feeling. Even now, the Dementors that had unlocked his cell would be searching for their kin. Ron raced down the hall, retracing the way toward the yard, and sprinted down one of the endless spiral stairways to the ground floor.

Near the prison entrance was a chamber where the guards forced prisoners to change into uniforms. In that room, Augusta Longbottom had recalled, were a set of steps. “They must be to the guards’ quarters,” she’d said. “Where they can hide from the Dementors’ effects.”

It was this chamber that Ron needed to find. He dashed through the first floor, Deluminator outstretched, cries coming from inside the cells as dazzling light roused the sleeping prisoners. Ahead, Dementors were fleeing down side corridors, wheeling and billowing wildly like shadows cast by a strobe.

Ron burst into a wide hall. At its opposite end was a door; through the window of that door, rain-lashed night.

He sprinted down the hall and into the search chamber, then saw the steps Augusta had described. He barrelled down them, and as he burst through the door into the guards’ quarters, four voices cried out.

Ron had one moment to take in the scene. It was a comfortable lounge with a flickering fire in the hearth, an Exploding Snap deck laid upon a long table. A pair of Patronuses patrolled the perimeter of the room, insulating the guards from the misery above.

Ron realised the light must be even more blinding to the guards than it was to him, for they were doubled over, sending spells ricocheting off the walls. He threw himself forward, out of the way of a jet of light from the nearest guard, and wrested another’s wand out of her hand. “ _Stupefy,_ ” he yelled, dropping a third guard. The fourth had fallen to his knees, moaning, weeping, his arms folded over his eyes.

Ron sprinted forward and seized the wands from the third and fourth guards, moving erratically to try and dodge any further attacks from the first. But when he wheeled around to stun the first guard, the man was gone.

Ron swore loudly and flung himself up the steps after the man. The guard couldn’t be allowed to escape—couldn’t be allowed to raise the alarm—but by the time Ron reached the main hall, the prison’s front door was hanging open. The guard was tearing across the island’s rocks to the Apparition Point.

Ron slid down the rain-slicked steps of the prison, taking aim at the man’s back. “ _Stupefy!_ ” he yelled, the Deluminator casting light through the rain like an immense floodlamp. “ _Impedimenta!_ _STUPEFY!”_

But the man was at the Apparition point, the single spot on the island that anyone could enter or exit.

Then he was gone.

Now phrases that would have appalled his mother were falling freely from Ron’s lips. They were meant to have all night to do this, with the guards sealed beneath and the Dementors at bay, all night to free everyone in this accursed place, but that guard would travel to the Ministry and raise the alarm. Ron was sure he had fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.

He bolted back toward the stairwell. Dirk’s cell was closest, then Ted’s, then Dean’s. Ron handed them each one of the three wands, and as the corridors of Azkaban rang with confused cries, they pelted up toward the 17th floor, the Deluminator scattering bands of Dementors before them. Dirk did a clever bit of charmwork that made the stairs spin, accelerating them up toward their destination. The maximum security hall.

“Open them!” Ron yelled. “All of them!”

“ _Alohomora!_ ” The hall rang with Dirk’s, Ted’s, and Dean’s voices, and cell door after cell door burst wide.

Ron hurried forward, looking into each cell, hunting—hoping—

And there they were. His parents, frighteningly thin, staggering out of their cells, their faces streaked with tears.

“Ron,” they gasped as one, and then they were throwing themselves upon him in an embrace, making him stagger. Ron clenched his eyes shut and let himself squeeze them for one second before breaking back.

“Where’s Percy?” he panted.

But when he wheeled around, he saw Percy there, his glasses cracked in one eye. “How—” Percy stuttered. “ _How?_ ”

“Never mind how,” Ron said. “We’ve got to get to the Apparition point. We’ve only got a few wands, and …”

He turned back. The hallway was filled with people. Augusta Longbottom, Oliver Wood, and Angelina Johnson; Sturgis Podmore and—to Ron’s shock—Nymphadora Tonks, hugely pregnant and weeping into her father’s shoulder. The thought of the other prisoners tore at him.

 _Elaine,_ he thought. There was no time to go back for her. She would die here.

Just then, he heard a distant sound that made his heart plummet. It was the _crack_ of Apparition.

They all rushed to the windows and peered through the slits. Ron could see wandlight at the tip of the island. More _crack_ sounds pierced the roar of the storm, and the number of lights increased.

“The Ministry are here,” Ted breathed, clutching to his daughter’s shoulders.

“Looks like they’re staying down at the Apparition point for now,” Tonks said. “Probably waiting for us to make a break for it. But they won’t stay there forever.”

“Weasley! What do we do?” said Dirk, wand held in his hand like a knife. There was a hard expression on his face that told Ron he would fight to the death.

Ron looked around and realized they were all facing him, awaiting his direction. A nervous shiver ran through him, but then the Deluminator throbbed in his hand. _You can do this,_ he thought.

“We can’t fight them with three wands,” Ron said. “We need something else. Some other way to …”

He looked back through the slit in the wall and heard panicked yells from the Apparition point. The Ministry were trying to conjure Patronuses, but swarms of Dementors—apparently maddened by the Deluminator—were beginning to swoop down on them, attacking their own masters.

“Yes,” Ron whispered. Their best weapon was the very force that had been sent to imprison them. “We need to get everyone into the yard,” he called. “Dirk, Ted, Dean—Patronuses.”

Without hesitation, they did as he’d asked. Three silver animals burst forth, shining brilliantly within the daylight of the Deluminator.

“Dirk,” Ron said, “get to the front entrance and block it as best you can. Ted, take everyone here down to the yard. Everyone stay close to your Patronus—it won’t be able to hold off these numbers of Dementors for long. Dirk, once the front door is walled up, meet them in the yard. Dean, you and I will go and start letting people out floor by floor. Let’s go!”

The prison was an immense fortress, but over the past weeks, Ron, Dean, Ted, and Dirk had come to a rough estimate of exactly how many prisoners it held. Before their hour in the yard, there was a low gong. This gong sounded four times a day, which, Dirk reasoned, meant there were four different groups who came to the yard. Their own group had a hundred and fifty prisoners, so they’d guessed there should be six hundred total or so.

This seemed to hold true. On each of Azkaban’s seventeen floors, Ron and Dean found a few dozen prisoners scattered throughout the hundreds of cells. Dean cast mass _Alohomoras_ with a sweep of his wand while Ron called to the prisoners staggering out of their cells to stay within view of the Deluminator. Always, at the edge of the light, he could see the Dementors seething, writhing, trying to break through to their quarry.

But the Dementors’ numbers were dwindling. When Ron glanced out through the slit windows into the driving rain, he could see more and more furious Dementors fleeing the prison and the Deluminator to attack the arriving Ministry members, whom they seemed to think were easier prey. By the time Ron and Dean had shuttled half the prison out into the yard, an all-out battle was being waged on the edge of the island.

They needed every minute they could get. Many of the prisoners were so weak that they hobbled along at an agonising pace. Dean thought to try Transfiguring a quicker way down to the yard—“Could we turn the walls into slides?” he suggested—but when he tried to cast spells on the walls, they extinguished immediately. The fortress had been reinforced against all magical attack.

The biggest risk was the growing number of prisoners in the yard, whose fear and anticipation was becoming an increasing magnet for the Dementors. Ron often had to pelt to the slit windows during the evacuation to shine the Deluminator out into the yard, assisting Ted’s and Dirk’s Patronuses, forcing the Dementors up and out of the yard.

Soon they were nearing Ron’s sector of the prison. His throat was beginning to tighten. Would Elaine refuse to come with them? Surely the power of the Deluminator would rouse her, as it had the rest of the prisoners … but she’d seemed on death’s door this entire week …

Ron rounded the corner onto his hall. “ _Alohomora,”_ Dean yelled, and the doors burst wide. People began to pour out, dozens, but Ron’s eyes were fixed on Elaine’s cell door, halfway down. No one was coming through.

“Take this a moment,” Ron said, pushing the Deluminator into Dean’s hand. Dean nodded, calling to the prisoners while Ron darted through the crowd and into the threshold of Elaine’s cell.

“Elaine,” he panted. “Come on, it’s time! We’ve got to go!”

She was shaking, her blanket pulled over herself.

“Elaine!” Ron dashed forward. “Come off it, you can’t—”

Finally, she lowered her blanket.

Ron stopped in his tracks. He had imagined Elaine hundreds of times at this point. He’d reasoned with himself about the possibility that she wouldn’t be lovely, the way he’d pictured her. _Shallow,_ he’d heard in both Ginny’s and Hermione’s disgusted voices when he thought these things, but Ron couldn’t help it. His imagination ran away with him.

But Elaine’s looks weren’t the problem.

The problem was that she wasn’t Elaine. She was someone else.

She was Pansy Parkinson.

Ron took an inadvertent step back, gaping.

“I told you,” Pansy rasped. Her face was gaunt. Her dark hair, always shining around her shoulders at school, was lank and knotted. Her voice, which he remembered as a derisive shriek, was unrecognisable in this hoarse whisper, and with her tattered prison clothing, Ron could hardly picture her in her expensive Twilfit and Tatting’s robes, which she’d seemed to replace every break.

It was Pansy Parkinson who had spoken Ron to sleep, Pansy Parkinson who had eased the darkness. Pansy Parkinson who felt least-loved of her family. Pansy who had begun, this past week, to whisper apologies to him.

“I told you,” she said again. “It would have been worse to go out there with all those people, _your_ people. Didn’t I tell you, Weasley?”

“Don’t call me that,” Ron said without thinking.

For an instant they just looked at each other. Then, behind him, Dean burst out, “Ron!” He had skidded down the hall. “This floor’s done, we’ve got to get to the next—”

As the Deluminator’s light fell onto Pansy, making her shudder, Dean broke off. “ _Pansy?_ ” he said.

Ron came back to life. What was he doing, standing motionless when they still had four more floors to evacuate? “This way. We’ve got to get you out. _This way!_ ” he repeated, for Pansy hadn’t moved. She was staring at him as if she had no idea what he was saying.

Finally Ron flew forward, and his hand closed around her wrist. “Come on,” he said.

Her face was smeared with grime and sweat, her eyes liquid. She nodded.

Ron and Dean had nearly evacuated the ground floor when Ron heard it. A _boom._ A _thud._ The Ministry had reached the doors of the prison. They were trying to get in.

“Come on!” Dean called, while Ron raced forward, coaxing the last few prisoners out of their cells. Finally, the last group reached the prison yard. It had stopped raining; they could see stars overhead.

“That’s everyone,” Ron yelled to the Order, clustered nearby. At once, Ted and Dirk raised their wands, Transfiguring some of the yard’s gravel into stone barricades that blocked out the five doors.

The panicked prisoners in the yard had all turned as one to the presence of the Deluminator, which Ron held aloft, casting its luminescence over them. He saw fear transform into defiance, pain into hope. For a split instant he saw Pansy in the crowd, straightening up into that posture like a dancer’s, which he’d always thought so snobby at school.

Then cries rang throughout the prison yard. Hands thrust up into the night. Ron looked up. Now that the Ministry had breached the entrance, the Dementors were returning in force. Up on the prison’s battlements, there were showers of wandlight, Ministry wizards looking down into the courtyard, pointing, yelling. They were directing the Dementors downward.

Screams of terror from the other prisoners. Dread filled Ron as a dark shadow knit itself shut over the courtyard, blocking out the starlight. For a mad second he thought he saw the flash of a camera. How long had this siege been going on? Surely upward of an hour—how far had the news spread? Once the Death Eaters realised it was a full-scale revolt, they would come themselves.

Ron thrust the Deluminator up from his side, and the light blasted upward, scattering the Dementors high. Again the Dementors fell upon the Ministry wizards on the battlements. There were screams, blasts of distant light. Ron could see dozens of Patronuses flitting around the battlements. There were cries from within the prison, too, and Ron knew the horror that the Ministry was facing within, trying to find their way through the maze of corridors.

The Order turned to Ron. His mother was squeezing his arm with an agonising grip.

“What’s our plan, Weasley?” said Dirk.

“How are we going to get to that Apparition point?” Tonks said, still out of breath.

“We’re not,” Ron said. “There’s too many of us. But then I thought—it’s just good sense, isn’t it? If we can just undo the Apparition wards, then we can all Apparate out to Order headquarters using these wands.”

“ _Undo the Apparition wards?_ ” Percy spluttered. “But—hang on just a moment. That kind of magic—even to _begin_ we’ll need an Arithmancer to do reams of diagnostic charmwork …”

Dirk Cresswell gestured at the prison yard. “Then it’s a good thing we’ve got six hundred people to pick from, isn’t it?” He turned back to Ron. “Weasley, should I use _Sonorus_ to get their attention?”

“No,” Ron said, looking up at the battlements. “Someone could hear and figure out what we’re up to.” He looked among the Order. “Everyone except Dean, Dirk, and the Tonkses, go through the crowd and find an Arithmancer who knows what they’re doing.”

The Order dispersed into the crowd. Ron turned to Dean. “Mate,” he said apologetically, “give your wand to Tonks, would you? Tonks, Dirk, Ted, we need some cover from above, in case the Ministry start firing spells down on us. I reckon this thing—” Ron pointed to the umbrella of light that hung over the courtyard— “could ward off minor hexes, but we need more protection. Reckon you can conjure a decent shield for us?”

The night deepened. Azkaban’s impenetrability became clear. As Ron had anticipated, the perfect place to keep prisoners in was also an ideal place to conduct a siege. Though they could hear blasts inside the sheer walls of the fortress, nothing broke through. And although the Ministry made occasional attempts to rain spells down upon them from above, they were so soon beset by the Dementors that hovered over the battlements that they fled for cover.

The diagnostic charmwork elapsed as Percy had promised. An Arithmancer named Suresh Madan paced back and forth in a corner of the yard, muttering spells and twitching one of the wands in squiggles that Ron could in no way connect to Hermione’s scrolls of homework from Professor Vector. Meanwhile, the prisoners, tense and fearful, huddled against the wall, waiting, occasionally crying out in warning when Ministry wizards appeared in bands on the battlements.

Ron walked among the yard, holding the Deluminator aloft, spreading its light evenly among the crowd. He spoke to people he recognised from his hours in the yard, saying bracing words. He couldn’t believe the way they looked at him. Not just with admiration, but with faith. Like Ron was someone who could stand on his own two feet, who could achieve something like this on his own.

And he had, Ron supposed—but not completely on his own.

He saw Pansy once, leaning against a wall. She’d moved far away from where he’d seen her earlier, as if she hadn’t wanted him to find her. A lump rose in his throat when he saw her. Ron didn’t understand the feelings clashing together inside him, so he moved along quickly, not getting close enough to speak, trying to stay focused on the dangers at hand.

Ron didn’t know how long the siege had been going—an hour? More?—when he heard a noise that made the bottom of his stomach drop out. Shouting from behind one of the five entrances to the yard. Ted’s and Dirk’s reinforcements had put the doors out of sight, but their Transfigured barricades would not hold in the same way that Azkaban’s mighty foundations would.

Most of the prisoners had shied back from the door. Ron and the rest of the Order surged forward. Sturgis and Ted, who had both taken over shielding duty, stood at the front with wands raised.

“Suresh isn’t done yet,” hissed Percy, bobbing anxiously at Ron’s side. “He needs a few more minutes, and then we’ll know how deep the rune anchor is buried, and _then_ we need to search for it before we can destroy it.”

Ron swallowed. “We’ll just have to hope there aren’t many Aurors behind that door. If we can battle them back—it’s our only chance.”

They steeled themselves as the shouts increased in volume. Ron’s fists tightened. Was there a chance? The doorway was only wide enough to fit one at a time, really, which meant that Sturgis and Ted would have an advantage. If they could just stop the Ministry from spilling out into the courtyard …

“ _Reducto!_ ” yelled a voice from inside. The stone reinforcement exploded into rock dust.

As Sturgis and Ted began to shout hexes, Molly Weasley cried out, “ _Stop!”_ and flung herself in front of them.

“Molly,” Sturgis bellowed, “get out of the—”

But Ron knew why his mother had run forward, for he, too, knew the voice that had yelled the Reductor Curse. The first thing to burst over the threshold, through the smoke of rock dust, was a zoo of silver animals. A cantering horse, two flittering birds, a massive, prowling lynx. A tabby cat and a wolf on its heels. An otter. A stag.

Then the freckled faces of Fred and George Weasley appeared, and into the inner yard of Azkaban spilled the rest of the Order of the Phoenix, gasping and sweating, bruised and bloodied, their wands held high.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hooray! annnd we’re all caught up. i estimate that i will have fooled approximately thirty percent of people with the Pansy reveal. i accept my fate.
> 
> please also note that I have added a chapter count!! I finished my outline and there should be thirty!! yay.
> 
> [tumbl away with me!](http://batmansymbol.tumblr.com)


End file.
